'LIBRARY 


I 


UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


AY 

2- 


Columbia 
STUDIES  IN  COMPARATIVE  LITERATURE 


IDYLLS   OF  FISHERMEN 


COLUMBIA 

UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

SALES  AGENTS 

NEW   YORK  : 

LEMCKE  &  BUECHNER 
30-32  WEST  27TH  STREET 

LONDON : 

HENRY  FROWDE 
AMEN  CORNER,  E.G. 

TORONTO : 

HENRY  FROWDE 
25  RICHMOND  STREET,  W 


IDYLLS  OF  FISHERMEN 


A  HISTORY  OF  THE  LITERARY  SPECIES 


BY 


HENRY  MARION  HALL,  PH.D. 


York 

THE  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1912 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1912 
By  THE  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRES 

Printed  from  type  March,  1912 


PRESS  OF 

THE  NEW  ERA  PRINTING  c 
LANCASTER.  PA. 


THIS  monograph  has  been  approved  by  the  De- 
partment of  English  and  Comparative  Literature  in 
Columbia  University  as  a  contribution  to  knowledge 
worthy  of  publication. 

A.  H.  THORNDIKE, 

Secretary. 


TO  MY  MOTHER 

FLORENCE  HOWE  HALL 

THIS  BOOK  IS  AFFECTIONATELY   DEDICATED 


PREFACE 

Many  of  the  works  in  foreign  languages  cited 
in  this  book  are  familiar  to  scholars,  but  as  the 
plan  of  the  work  has  been  to  render  all  quota- 
tions in  English,  for  the  convenience  of  readers  a 
list  of  translations  easily  accessible  in  libraries 
has  been  embodied  in  the  Bibliography. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    ORIGINS  OF  THE  PASTORAL  OF  FISHERS      i 

The  origin  of  the  English  idyll  of  fishermen 
in  ancient  Greek  literature  and  the  develop- 
ment of  the  pastoral  of  fishers  in  Greek  and  in 
classical  Latin. 

II.     SANNAZARO  AND  His  IMITATORS  ON 

THE  CONTINENT 45 

The  immediate  source  of  the  fisher  idyll  of 
the  Renaissance  in  the  "  piscatory  eclogues " 
of  Sannazaro,  and  the  development  of  the 
species  in  the  pastoral  literature  of  Italy,  Spain 
and  France. 

III.    THE  ENGLISH  FISHER  IDYLLS 96 

The  idyll  of  fishermen  in  England  from  the 
earliest  times  to  the  final  decay  of  the  "  new 
style"  of  pastoral  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

APPENDIX   i  gg 

BIBLIOGRAPHY    '201 

CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  THE  CHIEF  ENG- 
LISH  PlSCATORIES 212 

INDEX    214 


IDYLLS  OF  FISHERMEN 


CHAPTER  I 
ORIGINS  OF  THE  PASTORAL  OF  FISHERS 

The  origin  of  English  fisher  idylls,  or  "pisca- 
tory eclogues,"  is  to  be  found  in  the  poetry  of 
ancient  Greece,  just  as  is  that  of  shepherd  song. 
In  a  land  of  islets,  sounds,  and  promontories, 
many  a  youth  drove  his  flock  afield  on  hillsides 
whence  he  could  look  down  on  the  blue  shield  of 
the  sea,  rimmed  with  white  surf,  seething  and 
thundering  on  rock-ribbed  coasts,  or  tumbling  in 
lines  of  breakers  along  curving  reaches  of  yellow 
sand.  Amid  the  waste  of  dunes  a  spot  here  and 
there  marked  the  hut  of  a  fisher,  while  not  far 
away  the  solitary  owners  might  be  seen,  tugging 
at  the  oars  or  hauling  their  nets.  When  these 
men  in  the  fishing  skiffs  paused  for  a  moment  in 
their  labor  and  glanced  towards  the  uplands,  they 
saw  the  white  of  sheep,  dots  on  green  pastures, 
or  heard  perhaps  the  faint  and  distant  music  of 
the  pastoral  pipes.  By  very  necessity  the  herds- 
man and  the  fisher  were  near  neighbors,  so  it  is 
only  natural  that  they  should  appear  in  verse  as 
companion  figures.  Thus  there  existed  in  the 
beginning  of  country  song  an  obvious  relation- 
ship between  poetry  dealing  with  rustics  and  that 
concerned  with  fishermen. 


2  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

This  relationship  was  obviously  determined  by 
the  accident  of  neighborhood,  but  limited  by  the 
essential  differences  between  the  verdant  fields 
sacred  to  Pan  and  those  barren,  desolate  expanses 
owning  the  sway  of  Neptune.  The  gray  of  the 
sea  dims  most  ancient  pictures  of  fishing  life,  and 
in  them,  as  a  rule,  we  may  look  in  vain  for  the 
sunny  warmth  of  Sicilian  meadows  where  shep- 
herds pipe  and  sing.  It  is  noteworthy  also  that 
the  mood  of  piscatory  poetry  is  usually  serious 
or  melancholy,  and  in  keeping  with  the  surround- 
ings. Even  legends  about  the  deities  of  fishers 
share  this  quality.  Proteus  is  almost  an  incar- 
nation of  the  swift  and  awful  changes  of  the 
ocean,  a  lonely  prophet  voice  of  many  waters. 
So  it  is  also  with  the  stories  of  Arion  cast  over- 
board by  the  sailors,  of  Ceyx  and  Haley  one,  of 
Circe's  frightful  revenge  on  Scylla,  and  of  many 
more. 

The  essential  difference  between  these  two  va- 
rieties of  verse  is  well  illustrated  in  their  begin- 
nings. As  soon  as  rustic  song  became  literature 
poets  selected  for  their  themes  activities  which 
they  deemed  typical,  but  which  at  the  same  time 
appeared  appropriate  for  poetical  expression — 
such,  for  instance,  as  the  pasturing  of  herds  rather 
than  the  cleansing  of  folds  or  pens.  The  things 
thus  consciously  chosen  tended  in  time  to  be- 
come fixed  as  pastoral  conventions.  Such  selec- 
tion with  the  resultant  growth  of  conventions 
characterizes  also  the  work  of  those  who  describe 
fishers.  The  men  may  fish,  talk,  sing  or  dream, 
but  the  sordid  details  of  their  lives,  the  scaling 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS          3 

or  cleaning  of  fish  and  the  like  are  purposely 
omitted.  The  earliest  sketches  show  these  toil- 
ers of  the  sea  to  be  men  of  great  age,  dogged 
patience,  bitter  poverty,  yet  of  contentment  with 
their  lot,  and  these  characteristics  after  a  while 
become  generally  associated  with  the  piscatory 
poem. 

These  limitations  and  these  conventions  show 
that  the  work  embodying  them  deserves  to  be 
classed  as  pastoral,  in  spite  of  the  consideration 
that  the  barren  aspects  of  the  life  described  lend 
to  early  pieces  about  fishermen  an  appearance 
of  realism  perhaps  greater  than  that  in  related 
poetry  concerning  shepherds.  The  body  of  an- 
cient literature  thus  dealing  with  the  neighbors 
of  the  shepherd  is  not  great,  but  it  develops  along 
parallel  lines  with  bucolics,  and  will  be  found 
affected  by  nearly  every  change  incident  to  pas- 
toral evolution.  The  shepherds'  "  Golden  Age," 
however,  was  never  considered  a  happy,  care- free 
time  for  fishermen.  It  is  worth  noting,  too,  that 
whereas  it  was  believed  that  Apollo  had  once 
come  down  on  earth  to  live  as  a  shepherd,  the 
only  corresponding  fisher  myth  is  that  of  Glaucus, 
who  was  regarded  as  singularly  lucky  in  that  he 
was  transformed  into  an  ocean  deity,  and  so  es- 
caped from  an  existence  of  toil  and  misery. 

Theocritus  (c.  280  B.  C.)  is  the  creator  of  the 
literary  piscatory,  as  he  is  of  the  literary  bucolic, 
and  the  main  object  of  this  essay  is  to  trace  the 
development  of  the  class  of  poems,  with  related 
pieces  of  prose,  which  are  in  a  general  way  de- 
scended from  his  fisher  idyll.  For  such  a  study 


4  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

a  brief  account  of  the  beginnings  of  the  genre  in 
earlier  Greek  forms  the  logical  introduction,  since 
fishermen  are  described  by  Homer,  and  figure  in 
epigrams,  mimes  and  plays  of  great  antiquity. 
It  is  necessary,  however,  to  omit  examination  of 
miscellaneous  material  relating  rather  to  fish-lore 
than  to  the  pursuits  of  men.  Much  of  this  is  to 
be  found  in  Athenaeus'  "  Deipnosophists,"  a  sort 
of  philosophers'  feast,  in  which  the  qualities  of 
everything  edible  are  discussed,  with  quotations 
about  fish  from  plays,  histories,  treatises  and 
various  other  kinds  of  literature.  To  this  extra- 
ordinary work  we  owe  the  preservation  of  many 
fragments  of  the  earliest  mimes,  but  unfortu- 
nately the  interest  of  Athenaeus  in  food  gives  a 
one-sided  view  to  all  his  citations. 

The  history  of  the  fisher  eclogue  may  be  con- 
veniently divided  into  three  parts,  the  first  of 
which  includes  consideration  of  the  extant  matter 
in  Greek  and  in  classical  Latin.  After  this  pre- 
liminary survey  comes  the  work  of  the  humanist 
Sannazaro  (ante  1503),  who  initiated  the  modern 
variety.  He  contrived  a  variant  on  the  manner 
of  Virgil's  pastorals,  shifting  the  scene  from 
Arcadia  to  the  seashore,  changing  herdsmen  into 
fishers,  and  introducing  relevant  material  from 
Theocritus.  These  pieces  were  extensively  imi- 
tated in  Italy,  both  in  Latin  and  in  the  vernacular, 
and  the  resultant  body  of  poetry  constitutes  a 
recognized  literary  species,  closely  related  to  con- 
temporary bucolics.  A  discussion  of  these  ma- 
rine pastorals  will  be  followed  by  an  account  of 
the  spread  of  the  fisher  motive  to  other  literary 


ORIGINS   OF   THE    PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS          5 

forms,  such  as  the  sonnet,  the  romance,  and  the 
drama.  Finally,  this  second  division  of  the  treatise 
must  deal  with  the  wider  dissemination  of  the 
Sannazarian  "  ecloga  piscatoria,"  evidenced  by 
imitations  in  France  and  in  Spain.  The  intro- 
duction of  the  form  into  Elizabethan  England, 
with  the  story  of  the  growth  of  the  English  fisher 
idyll,  forms  the  subject  treated  in  the  last  portion 
of  the  present  work. 

The  earliest  pictures  of  country  life  extant  in 
Greek  are  found  in  Homer's  Iliad.  On  the  mighty 
shield  of  Achilles1  the  God  of  Fire  wrought  in 
tin,  and  brass,  and  gold,  the  shapes  of  shepherds 
playing  on  their  pipes  as  they  drive  their  flocks 
to  water,  where  warriors  lie  in  wait  to  seize  them ; 
of  broad  pastures  in  a  pleasant  glade,  all  white 
with  browsing  sheep ;  of  cottages,  stalls  and  wat- 
tled folds,  and  of  herdsmen  grazing  their  kine  by 
a  murmuring  river.  Still  more  elaborate  are 
gravings  of  a  great  vineyard  in  busy  vintage  time, 
of  vast  fallows  where  plows  are  drawn  by  plod- 
ding cattle,  and  of  a  broad  field  of  wheat  through 
which  the  harvesters  mow  their  way,  while 
sheave-binders  bind  the  sheaves,  servants  prepare 
feast  and  sacrifice,  and  maids  knead  meal  for  the 
hungry  reapers. 

Homer's  fishermen  are  not  drawn  in  such  de- 
tail, but  the  fact  that  they  appear  here  and  there 
in  epic  similes  is  sufficient  reminder  of  the  famil- 
iarity of  the  ancients  with  the  hard  life  of  those 
who  wrung  a  scant  living  from  the  ocean.  The 

1  Bryant's  translation,  Book  18,  541-606. 


O  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

poet  says,  for  instance,  that  Patroclus  in  battle 
looked  :2 

..."  as  when  an  angler  sits 

Upon  a  jutting  rock,  and  from  the  sea 

Draws  a  huge  fish  with  line  and  gleaming  hook, 

So  did  Patroclus,  with  his  shining  spear, 

Draw  forth  the  panting  Trojan  from  his  car 

And  shook  him  clear :  he  fell  to  earth  and  died." 

Another  illustration  occurs  in  the  Odyssey,  where 
Scylla  seizes  the  companions  of  Ulysses : 

"  As  when  an  angler  on  a  jutting  rock 
Sits  with  his  taper  rod,  and  casts  his  bait 
To  snare  the  smaller  fish,  he  sends  the  horn 
Of  a  wild  bull  that  guards  his  line  afar 
Into  the  water,  and  jerks  out  a  fish, 
And  throws  it  gasping  shoreward,  so  were  they 
Uplifted  gasping  to  the  rocks.  .  .  ."* 

Such  glimpses  in  the  Homeric  poems  give  the 
same  picture  of  solitude,  poverty,  and  patient 
labor,  and  contrast  sharply  with  the  other  scenes 
from  humble  life. 

"  The  Shield  of  Heracles,"  a  heroic  poem  for- 
merly attributed  to  Hesiod,  but  now  conceded  to 
be  by  a  later  poet,  presents  in  more  ornate  and 
florid  style  the  same  kind  of  pictures  as  those 
which  appear  on  the  buckler  described  in  the 
Iliad.  Just  as  in  Homer's  poem  the  sea  encircles 
the  entire  shield,  but  it  is  described  at  some  length, 
with  flights  of  screaming  swans  that  "  skimmed 
the  breasted  surge,"  while  in  the  waves  "  fishes 


2  Bryant,  16,  510-515. 

3  Bryant,  12,  300-306. 


ORIGINS  OF  THE   PASTORAL  OF  FISHERS          7 

were  tossing  in  tumultuous  leaps."     In  another 
place : 

"...  there  appeared 

A  sheltering  haven  from  the  untamed  rage 
Of  ocean.     It  was  wrought  of  tin  refined, 
And  rounded  by  the  chisel ;  and  it  seemed 
Like  to  the  dashing  wave ;  and  in  the  midst 
Full  many  dolphins  chased  the  fry,  and  show'd 
As  though  they  swam  the  waters,  to  and  fro 
Darting  tumultuous.    Two  of  silver  scale 
Panting  above  the  wave,  the  fishes  mute 
Gorged,  that  beneath  them  shook  their  quivering 

fins 

In  brass.     But  on  the  crag  a  fisher  sate 
Observant :  in  his  grasp  he  held  a  net 
Like  one  that,  poising,  rises  to  the  throw."4 

The  poem  is  very  obviously  an  imitation  of 
Homer,  and  it  seems  likely  that  the  poet  bor- 
rowed his  picture  of  the  fisher  from  the  older 
epic.  Yet  this  marine  view,  with  the  haven  and 
the  cliff  is  not,  as  in  the  Homeric  work,  chance 
illustration,  but  is  a  careful  elaboration  of  a  suit- 
able background  for  the  solitary  figure,  just  as 
the  fields  in  the  ancient  pastoral  form  an  artistic 
setting  for  the  laborers.  It  is  by  far  the  most 
complete  illustration  from  fisher  life  extant  be- 
fore Theocritus. 

From  these  and  other  fragments  preserved  by 
Athenaeus  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  much  chance 
illustration  drawn  from  the  activities  of  fishers 
has  been  lost.  The  occasional  occurrence  of  early 
fisher  epigrams,  too,  with  the  marked  similarity 

4Tr.  C.  A,  Elton,  422-9,  283-95. 


8  IDYLLS   OF    FISHERMEN 

between  these  and  the  more  numerous  group 
known  to  be  the  work  of  later  imitators,  suggests 
the  possibility  that  a  considerable  number  may 
have  been  composed.  The  most  ancient  are  the 
following,  the  first  of  which  has  been  attributed 
to  Sappho,5  and  the  second  to  Alcaeus :° 

"  Meniscus,  mourning  for  his  only  son, 
The  toil-experienced  fisher,  Pelagon, 
Has  placed  upon  his  tomb  a  net  and  oar, 
The  badges  of  a  painful  life  and  poor." 

"  THE  POOR  FISHERMAN." 

"  The  fisher  Diotinus  had  at  sea 
And  shore  the  same  abode  of  poverty, 
His  trusty  boat — and  when  his  days  were  spent, 
Therein  self-rowed,  to  ruthless  Dis  he  went; 
For  that  which  did  through  life  his  woes  beguile, 
Supplied  the  old  man  with  a  funeral  pile." 

Now  let  us  compare  a  typical  bucolic  epigram  by 
Theocritus,  "For  a  Herdsman's  Offering": 

"  Daphnis,  the  white-limbed  Daphnis,  that  pipes 
on  his  fair  flute  the  pastoral  strains,  offered  to  Pan 
these  gifts — his  pierced  reed-pipes,  his  crook,  a  jave- 
lin keen,  a  fawn-skin,  and  the  scrip  wherein  he  was 
wont  on  a  time  to  carry  the  apples  of  Love." 

Meniscus  and  Diotinus  are  aged,  lonely,  and  mis- 
erably poor.  They  are  not  "  white-limbed,"  nor 
do  they  play  the  flute  nor  "carry  the  apples  of 
Love."  They  are  like  all  the  other  fishermen  in 
ancient  Greek,  whether  we  read  of  them  in  epi- 

•Tr.  T.  Fawkes,   Epigram   i. 

8  E.  W.  Peter,  "  The  Poets  and  Poetry  of  the  Ancients." 


ORIGINS   OF   THE    PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS          9 

grams,  in  Aesop  (560  B.  C.  ?),  or  in  fragments 
of  lost  treatises. 

The  relationship  between  primitive  shepherd 
song  and  the  worship  of  rustic  gods  finds  its  ana- 
logue in  the  connection  between  fishermen  and 
the  worship  of  marine  divinities.  In  many  cities 
offerings  of  fish,  or  even  of  eels,  smoked  on  altars 
in  the  temples.  Apollo,  whom  countrymen  hon- 
ored as  "  Mouse-killer,"  was  worshipped  among 
the  Eleans  under  the  title  of  "  Fish-eater,"  and  in 
the  fane  of  his  sister  goddess  Diana  at  Pisa,  there 
was  once  a  picture  in  which  Neptune  was  repre- 
sented as  bringing  a  tunny  to  Jupiter  in  labor.  In 
another  city  the  seasonal  advent  of  tunnies  was 
celebrated  by  a  religious  festival  called  the 
"  Thunnaeum,"  in  which  fishermen  sacrificed  to 
the  sea-king  the  first  fish  caught.  Mullets  were 
highly  regarded  for  their  edible  qualities,  for 
being  destroyers  of  the  poisonous  "  sea-hare,"  and 
as  being  sacred  to  Hecate,  one  of  the  trinity  to 
which  Artemis  belonged.  For  these  reasons  they 
were  always  carried  about  during  the  celebration 
of  the  Artemisia.  Hecate  was  herself  sometimes 
regarded  as  a  sea-goddess.  At  Corinth,  the  city 
between  two  seas,  festivals  in  honor  of  Neptune 
led  to  the  production  of  dithyrambic  choruses 
sung  by  celebrants  dancing  round  an  altar.  One 
piece,  attributed  to  Arion,  is  a  hymn  addressed  to 
the  ocean  king,  with  shoals  of  nereids  and  fish 
swarming  around  him  in  the  waves. 

The  conception  of  sacred  and  mysterious  fish 
was  very  ancient  and  appears  first  in  the  myths 
about  Glaucus,  once  a  fisherman  of  the  "  Golden 


10  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Age."  According  to  the  usual  version  of  the 
story  he  one  day  caught  in  his  net  a  large  number 
of  fine  fish.  These  he  landed,  and  admired  their 
beauty  as  they  lay  gasping  on  the  turf.  All  at 
once  they  nibbled  the  herbage,  became  filled  with 
fresh  life,  and  swam  down  the  bank  over  the 
beach  to  the  water.  The  astonished  Glaucus 
plucked  some  of  the  strange  grass  and  tasted  it. 
Instantly  he  was  transformed  into  a  sea-god,  with 
green  hair  and  a  scaly  tail,  and  plunged  into  the 
waves  among  the  escaped  prey.  He  remained  in 
the  ocean,  and  became  endowed  with  powers  of 
prophecy.  At  a  later  time  he  fell  in  love  with 
the  nymph  Scylla,  whom  Circe,  out  of  jealousy, 
changed  into  a  sea-monster.  Many  slightly  dif- 
ferent versions  of  this  story  were  rendered  in 
verse  or  prose  in  very  early  times,  and  at  a  later 
period  furnished  subject  matter  for  several 
laments. 

One  other  legend  about  a  fisherman  of  the 
Golden  Age  is  given  in  a  fragment  of  the  lost 
poem  by  Pancrates  the  Arcadian,  "Works  of 
the  Sea."  The  poet  cites  the  superstition  com- 
mon among  seamen  that  the  pompilus  (nautilus) 
was  a  sacred  fish,  and  tells  a  story  to  illustrate  it. 
Epopeus,  an  aged  fisher  on  the  island  of  Icarus 
during  the  Golden  Age,  once  threatened  to  punish 
this  fish.  He  was  angling  with  his  son  one  day, 
and  they  had  ill  luck,  landing  nothing  but  pompili. 
This  had  happened  before,  so  he  and  his  son  in 
a  rage  ate  every  one  of  their  catch.  Not  long 
afterwards  a  whale  attacked  their  boat  and  de- 
voured the  old  man  in  the  presence  of  his  son. 


ORIGINS   OF   THE    PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        I  I 

Before  leaving  for  the  present  this  matter  of 
the  sacred  fish,  it  is  worth  noting  that  according 
to  one  story  Apollo  learned  prophecy  from  Glau- 
cus.  It  is  said,  too,  that  near  a  certain  grove 
sacred  to  the  sun-god  people  used  to  consult  the 
fish  for  oracles.  It  was  necessary  for  the  ques- 
tioner to  provide  two  wooden  spits  with  meat  on 
them  and  to  cast  these  into  a  certain  eddy.  Nu- 
merous "  finny  herds,"  including  the  "  prophetic 
grayling"  and  small  whales  came  to  the  bait, 
while  a  prophet  observed  them.  His  declaration 
varied  with  the  size  and  number  of  the  mysterious 
swimmers.  Much  floating  material  of  this  sort 
connected  with  stories  of  sea-gods,  nereids,  and 
metamorphosis,  doubtless  familiar  from  very  early 
times,  was  eventually  embodied  in  various  treat- 
ises, which  contain  more  "  unnatural  natural  his- 
tory" than  reliable  data. 

From  fragments  of  ancient  plays  it  is  evident 
that  fishers  were  always  among  the  familiar  char- 
acters on  the  stage,  and  that  they  were  sometimes 
protagonists.  They  figured  in  the  earliest  come- 
dies about  which  anything  is  known,  those  by 
Epicharmus  (490  B.  C.)  founder  of  the  "Old" 
or  "  Dorian  "  comedy  in  Sicily.  Some  of  these 
pieces  parodied  mythology,  while  others  held  the 
mirror  up  to  everyday  life.  He  was  the  first 
playwright  to  ridicule  the  greedy  parasite,  and 
the  characters  which  he  drew  became  stock  per- 
sonages in  later  drama.  More  lines  remain  from 
his  burlesque  "  Hebe's  Marriage  "  and  from  "The 
Muses,"  a  recast  of  the  same  work,  than  from 
any  others.  The  Muses  are  not  the  traditional 


12  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

ones,  but  daughters  of  river-gods  whose  streams 
abound  in  fish.  Apparently  they  masquerade  as 
fishermen,  perhaps  as  a  chorus,  equipped  with 
rods  and  nets,  eager  to  capture  food  for  the  wed- 
ding feast.  The  Sea  King  joins  them: 

"  Neptune  then  arrives  himself 
Laden  with  most  beauteous  nets 
In  the  boats  of  fair  Phoenicia, 
Then  we  all  do  spari  catch 
And  scari  too,  that  sacred  fish 
Whose  very  dung  may  not  be  thrown  away." 

His  brother  Jupiter  shows  great  voracity,  and 
seizes  most  of  the  prizes  caught,  keeping  some 
for  himsel  f ,  but  presenting  others  to  Juno.  Similar 
broad  extravagance  characterizes  "  The  Muses," 
but  the  band  of  fishermen  bears  a  more  important 
part  in  the  action.  It  seems  likely,  also,  that 
fishers  were  drawn  with  realistic  touches  in  sev- 
eral plays  on  everyday  life  by  Epicharmus.  We 
can  form  no  definite  conclusions  from  the  mere 
bits  of  dialogue,  but  in  such  pieces  as  "  Land  and 
Sea,"  fishermen  and  countrymen  probably  figured 
in  burlesque  by  contrast  of  manners. 

From  Epicharmus  Sophron  apparently  inher- 
ited the  stock  figures  for  his  Sicilian  mimes,  but 
he  is  thought  to  have  characterized  them  with 
more  subtile  humor.  Each  piece  was  a  single 
scene,  and  "  The  Clown  and  the  Fisherman  "  may 
have  presented  in  compact  form,  the  same  situa- 
tion as  did  the  earlier  "  Land  and  Sea."  Little, 
however,  is  left  of  either  play  besides  descriptions 
of  fish  and  remarks  on  their  habits.  In  another 
of  Sophron's  mimes,  "  The  Tunny  Catcher,"  the 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL  OF   FISHERS        13 

characters  were  an  aged  fisher  and  his  son 
"  Cothonias,"  a  name  said  by  Athenaeus  to  have 
been  suggested  by  the  "  cothon,"  a  fish  that  loves 
to  bathe  in  mud.  The  single  vestige  remains  a 
puzzle : 

"  But  if  your  stomach  happens  to  have  swallowed 
a  shrimp." 

To  reconstruct  these  interludes  is,  of  course,  im- 
possible, but  it  is  considered  probable  that  they 
resembled,  in  witty,  realistic  parry  and  thrust  of 
dialogue,  the  pieces  by  a  successor,  Herondas, 
eight  of  which  have  recently  been  recovered.  It 
is  safe  to  assume,  too,  that  fishers  were  commonly 
presented  in  mimes.  The  influence  of  Sophron 
on  the  poems  of  Theocritus  is  thought  to  have 
been  considerable,  and  it  should  be  noted  that  the 
conversation  in  pieces  like  "  The  Tunny  Catcher  " 
may  well  have  formed  precedent  for  that  in  the 
Theocritean  idyll  about  the  two  old  fishermen. 

Before  turning  to  that  poem  it  may  be  well  to 
add  a  word  about  the  piscatory  element  in  other 
plays.  Plato  may  have  ridiculed  the  legend  of 
Sappho's  vain  love  for  the  Lesbian  fisherman  in 
his  comedy  of  "  Phaon,"  and  he  seems  to  have 
introduced  fishers  also  in  his  "  Europa "  and 
"  Holidays."  Antiphanis,  a  prolific  playwright 
of  "  Middle  Comedy,"  produced  a  drama  entitled 
"  The  Female  Fisher,"  of  which  more  is  known 
than  of  any  other  play  of  the  class  under  consid- 
eration. The  most  considerable  fragment  runs 
as  follows: 


14  IDYLLS   OF    FISHERMEN 

"  Give  me  some  cuttle-fish.     O  Hercules ! 
They've  dirtied  every  place  with  ink;  here,  take 

them 

And  throw  them  back  again  into  the  sea, 
To  wash  them  clean :  or  else  they'll  say,  O  Dorion, 
That  you  have  caught  some  rotten  cuttle-fish : 
And  put  this  cray-fish  back  beside  the  sprats. 
He's  a  fine  fish,  by  Jove.     O  mighty  Jove, 

0  you  Callimedon,  who  now  will  eat  you? 
No  one  who's  not  prepared  to  pay  his  share. 
I've  giv'n  you  your  place  here  on  the  right, 
You  mullets,  food  for  great  Callisthenes; 
Who  eats  his  patrimony  in  one  dish, 

Next  comes  the  mighty  conger  from  Sinope, 
With  his  stout  spines:  the  first  who  comes  shall 

have 

For  Misgolas  has  no  great  love  for  such. 
But  here's  a  citharus,  and  if  he  sees  him 
He  never  will  keep  off  his  hands  from  him; 
For  he,  indeed,  does  secretly  adhere 
As  close  as  wax  to  all  the  harp-players. 

1  ought  to  send  this  best  of  fish,  this  tench, 
Still  all  alive  and  leaping  in  the  dish, 

To  the  fair  Pythionica,  he's  so  fine : 
But  still  she  will  not  taste  him,  as  her  heart 
Is  wholly  set  on  cured  fish, — here  I  place 
These  thin  anchovies  and  this  dainty  turtle 
Apart  for  Theano,  to  counterbalance  her." 

Apparently  the  speaker  (the  "Female  Fisher") 
and  Dorion  are  taking  their  catch  from  a  boat  to 
display  it  on  a  stall  for  sale.  In  citing  these  lines 
Athenaeus  remarks: 

"And  it  is  a  very  clever  way  in  which  An- 
tiphanis  thus  jested  upon  Misgolas,  as  devoting 
all  his  attention  to  beautiful  harp-players  and 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        15 

lyre-players,"  adding  that  Pythionica  is  spoken 
of  as  fond  of  cured  fish  because  she  had  for 
lovers  the  sons  of  Chaerephilus,  the  seller  of  salt 
fish. 

The  humor  in  this  play  is  much  like  that  in  the 
mimes  by  Herondas,  and  the  lines  extant  give  a 
clue  to  the  probable  nature  of  fisher  drama.  Here 
again,  however,  the  interest  of  Athenaeus  in  food 
leads  to  his  citing  a  long  list  of  fish.  He  speaks 
enthusiastically  about  a  dialogue  concerning  the 
actual  pursuits  of  fishermen  in  a  play  by  An- 
tiphanis  called  "  The  Shrimp,"  but  instead  of 
quoting  it  he  gives  a  large  number  of  passages 
concerning  the  greed  of  fish-mongers.  In  one 
place,  to  be  sure,  he  pictures  the  death  of  some 
fishermen  in  a  storm,  but  only  to  show  the  result- 
ant rise  in  the  price  of  sea-food  at  the  city  stalls. 
From  other  bits  it  appears  that  Archippus'  "  The 
Fishes  and  the  Athenians  "  satirized  various  peo- 
ple under  the  names  of  fish  spelled  in  the  same 
way  as  their  own,  and  a  vase-painting  represent- 
ing men  astride  dolphins  is  thought  to  have  been 
suggested  by  this  comedy.  A  lost  play  by  a  con- 
temporary, Diphylus,  is  believed  to  have  been 
imitated  in  the  Roman  Plautus'  "  Rudens,"  with 
its  idyllic  pictures  of  fishing  life. 

From  these  older  plays  fishermen  were  taken 
into  "  New  Comedy,"  notably  into  the  work  of 
the  great  Menander.  In  the  "  Carthaginian  "  a 
fisher  says : 

"  I  offered  Boreas  much  frankincense 
And  yet  I  did  not  catch  one  single  fish,  so  I  must 
Now  cook  lentils  for  my  supper." 


1 6  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

A  few  lines  from  "Purple"  ("The  Purple 
Fish?")  also  mention  actual  fishing: 

"  But  I,  as  being  a  skillful  fisherman, 
Have  carefully  devised  all  sorts  of  arts 
To  catch  those  vile  paguri,  enemies 
To  all  the  gods  and  all  the  little  fishes. 
And  shall  I  not  without  delay  beguile 
An  old  buglossus?    That  would  be  well  done." 

Menander1  gave  the  title  "The  Fisherman"  to 
another  drama  in  which  characters  of  various 
sorts  besides  fishers  were  introduced.  Thus  we 
find  the  speeches  of  a  band  of  exiles  from  Hera- 
clea,  who  give  a  ridiculous  description  of  Dion- 
ysus, the  gluttonous  tyrant  of  their  city.  Other 
lines,  possibly  spoken  by  merchants,  enumerate 
various  articles  of  merchandise  brought  to  port 
by  a  ship.  The  only  mention  of  the  sea  is  this : 

"  And  the  disturbed  and  muddy  sea  which  breeds 
The  largest  tunnies." 

Theocritus  must  have  known  many  works  in 
which  fishers  were  described,  but  he  needed  no 
suggestion  for  the  composition  of  his  idyll  about 
the  fisherman's  dream  beyond  the  tender  remi- 
niscence with  which  he  looked  back  on  the  scenes 
of  his  youth  in  Sicily.  We  see  the  waves  sparkling 
beneath  the  moon  when  the  poet  makes  forsaken 
Simaetha  cry: 

"  Lo,  silent  is  the  deep,  and  silent  the  winds,  but 
never  silent  the  torment  in  my  breast." 

1  Pollux  (Onomastic.  50,  10,  c.  12)  cites  Menander's  play 
by  name,  and  says  that  in  it  a  fisher  came  upon  the  stage 
equipped  for  fishing. 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS         1 7 

In  the  song  of  Lycidas  the  sea  is  as  bright  as  the 
singer's  mood,  and  as  calm : 

"The  halcyons  will  lull  the  waves,  and  lull  the 
deep,  and  the  east,  that  stirs  the  sea-weed  on  the 
farthest  shores,  the  halcyons  that  are  dearest  to  the 
green-haired  mermaids  of  all  the  birds  that  take 
their  prey  from  the  salt  sea." 

The  miserable  cyclops  Polyphemus : 

"  sat  by  the  sea-weed  of  the  beach  from  the  dawn- 
ing of  day,"  or  he  would  sing  to  his  cruel  love  .  .  . 
"  sitting  on  the  crest  of  the  tall  cliff,  and  looking  to 
the  deep,"  and  beseech  her  to  "  leave  the  gray  sea 
to  roll  against  the  land." 

In  another  place  the  giant's  dog : 

"barks  as  he  looks  into  the  brine,  and  now  the 
beautiful  waves  that  softly  plash  reveal  him  as  he 
runs  upon  the  shore." 

In  another  scene  Menalcas,  meeting  Daphnis  on 
a  pasture  overlooking  the  ocean,  says : 

"  Nay,  but  beneath  this  rock  will  I  sing,  with  thee 
in  mine  arms,  and  watch  our  flocks  feeding  together, 
and  before  us  the  Sicilian  sea." 

The  Argo's  crew,  coming  to  an  island,  "  landed  on 
the  deep  seashore  and  a  sea-bank  sheltered  from  the 
wind,  they  strewed  their  beds,  and  their  hands  were 
busy  with  firewood." 

Even    in    his    familiar   comparisons    Theocritus 
thinks  of  the  sea : 

"  it  is  as  light  labour  to  count  the  waves  upon  the 
beach,  as  many  as  wind  and  gray-sea  tide  roll  upon 


1 8  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

the  shore  ...  as  to  win  favour  from  a  man  that  is 
smitten  with  the  greed  of  gain." 

Fishermen  were  as  familiar  to  the  Sicilian  poet 
as  the  waters  by  which  they  lived,  and  we  catch 
glimpses  of  them  in  several  of  the  idylls  besides 
the  one  in  which  they  are  the  only  personages. 
A  love-sick  goatherd,  singing  in  vain  before  the 
cave  of  Amaryllis,  turns  suddenly  towards  the 
cliffs,  uttering  this  threat : 

"  I  will  cast  off  my  coat  of  skins,  and  into  yonder 
waves  will  I  spring,  where  the  fisher  Olpis  watches 
for  the  tunny  shoals,  and  even  if  I  die  not,  surely 
thy  pleasure  will  have  been  done." 

Elsewhere  a  reward  for  singing  is  mentioned 
thus: 

"To  the  other  I  gave  a  goodly  spiral  shell,  the 
meat  that  filled  it  once  I  had  eaten  after  stalking 
the  fish  on  the  Icarian  rocks  (I  cut  it  into  five 
shares  for  five  of  us),  and  Menalcas  blew  a  blast  on 
the  shell." 

This  is  a  reminder  that  shepherds63  occasionally 
went  fishing,  as  they  are  mentioned  as  doing  in 
most  famous  pastorals  of  later  times.  The  most 
graphic  description  of  a  fisher  in  the  bucolic 
pieces  is  one  of  the  carvings  on  an  ivy  bowl.  The 
designs  present  contrasting  pictures  of  primitive 
life,  of  the  same  sort  as  those  graven  on  the  heroic 
shields — two  swains  trying  to  win  the  favor  of  a 
pretty  maiden,  and : 

"  beyond  these  an  ancient  fisherman  and  a  rock 
are  fashioned,  a  rugged  rock,  whereon  with  might 

68  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Theocritus  speaks  of  him- 
self as  the  fisherman  who  secured  the  spiral  shell. 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        19 

and  main  the  old  man  drags  a  net  for  his  cast,  as 
one  that  labours  stoutly.  Thou  wouldst  say  that  he 
is  fishing  with  all  the  might  of  his  limbs,  so  big 
the  sinews  swell  all  about  his  neck,  grey-haired 
though  he  be,  but  his  strength  is  as  the  strength  of 
youth.  Now  divided  but  a  little  space  from  the  sea- 
worn  old  man  is  a  vine-yard." 

It  has  been  thought  that  the  picture  of  the  old 
man  is  imitated  from  the  one  already  cited  from 
"The  Shield  of  Heracles,"  and  it  is  likely  that 
Theocritus  is  here  softening  the  Homeric  buckler 
motive  to  suit  idyllic  life.  At  any  rate  one  sees 
at  a  glance  that  these  fishermen  differ  in  no  re- 
spect from  those  mentioned  in  more  ancient  writ- 
ings, but  we  think  of  them  as  old,  patient,  half- 
starved  through  dint  of  toil  by  day  or  night, "  sea- 
worn."  Their  horny  hands  can  better  grasp  a 
trident  than  hold  the  delicate  pastoral  reeds. 
They  play  no  tunes,  they  dance  no  dances,  and 
they  sing  no  songs,  unless  perhaps  some  rowing 
chant,  as  they  tug  at  the  oars  when  homeward 
bound. 

The  twenty-first  idyll  gives  a  more  studied, 
elaborate  portrayal  of  their  hard  lot : 

"  Tis  Poverty  alone,  Diophantus,  that  awakens  the 
arts ;  Poverty,  the  very  teacher  of  labour.  Nay,  not 
even  sleep  is  permitted,  by  weary  cares,  to  men  that 
live  by  toil,  and  if,  for  a  little  while,  one  close  his 
eyes  in  the  night,  cares  throng  about  him  and  sud- 
denly disquiet  his  slumber. 

Two  fishers,  on  a  time,  two  old  men,  together  lay 
and  slept — they  had  strown  the  dry  sea-moss  for  a 
bed  in  their  wattled  cabin,  and  there  they  lay  against 
the  leafy  wall.  Beside  them  were  strewn  the  in- 


20  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

struments  of  their  toilsome  hands,  the  fishing  creels 
the  rods  of  reed,  the  hooks,  the  sails,  bedraggled 
with  sea-spoil,  the  lines,  the  weels,  the  lobster  pots 
woven  of  rushes,  the  seines,  two  oars,  and  an  old 
coble  upon  props.  Beneath  their  heads  was  a  scanty 
matting,  their  clothes,  their  sailor's  caps.  Here  was 
all  their  toil,  here  all  their  wealth.  The  threshold 
had  never  a  door,  nor  a  watch-dog;  all  things,  all, 
to  them  seemed  superfluity,  for  Poverty  was  their 
sentinel.  They  had  no  neighbor  by  them,  but  ever 
against  their  narrow  cabin  floated  up  the  sea. 

The  chariot  of  the  moon  had  not  yet  reached  the 
mid-point  of  her  course,  but  their  familiar  toil 
awakened  the  fishermen ;  from  their  eyelids  they  cast 
out  slumber,  and  roused  their  souls  with  speech. 

ASPHALION.  They  lie  all,  my  friend,  who  say  that 
the  nights  wane  short  in  summer,  when  Zeus  brings 
the  long  days.  Already  have  I  seen  ten  thousand 
dreams  and  the  dawn  is  not  yet.  Am  I  wrong,  what 
ails  them,  the  nights  are  surely  long? 

THE  FRIEND.  Asphalion,  thou  blamest  the  beau- 
tiful summer.  It  is  not  that  the  season  hath  wil- 
fully passed  his  natural  course,  but  care,  breaking 
thy  sleep,  makes  night  seem  long  to  thee. 

ASPHALION.  Didst  ever  learn  to  interpret 
dreams?  for  good  dreams  have  I  beheld.  I  would 
not  leave  thee  to  go  without  thy  share  in  my  vision ; 
even  as  we  go  shares  in  the  fish  we  catch,  so  share 
all  my  dreams.  Sure,  thou  art  not  to  be  surpassed 
in  wisdom;  and  he  is  the  best  interpreter  of  dreams 
that  hath  wisdom  for  his  teacher.  Moreover,  we 
have  time  to  idle  in,  for  what  could  a  man  find  to  do 
lying  on  a  leafy  bed  beside  th;  waves  and  slumber- 
ing not?  Nay  the  ass  is  among  the  thorns,  the  lan- 
tern in  the  town  hall,  for,  they  say,  it  is  always 
sleepless. 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        21 

THE  FRIEND.  Tell  me  then,  the  vision  of  the 
night;  nay  tell  all  to  thy  friend. 

ASPHALION.  As  I  was  sleeping  late,  amid  the 
labours  of  the  salt  sea  (and  truly  not  too  well-fed, 
for  we  supped  early  if  thou  dost  remember,  and  did 
not  overtax  our  bellies),  I  saw  myself  busy  on  a 
rock,  and  there  I  sat  and  watched  the  fishes,  and 
kept  spinning  the  bait  with  the  rods.  And  one  of 
the  fish  nibbled,  a  fat  one,  for  in  sleep  dogs  dream 
of  bread,  and  of  fish  dream  I.  Well  he  was  tightly 
hooked,  and  the  blood  was  running,  and  the  rod  I 
grasped  was  bent  with  the  struggle.  So  with  both 
hands  I  strained  and  had  a  sore  tussle  for  the 
monster.  How  was  I  ever  to  land  so  big  a  fish  with 
hooks  all  too  slim?  Then  just  to  remind  him  he 
was  hooked,  I  gently  pricked  him,  pricked,  and 
slackened,  and  as  he  did  not  run,  I  took  in  line.  My 
toil  was  ended  with  the  sight  of  my  prize;  I  drew 
up  a  monstrous  fish,  lo  you  a  fish  all  plated  thick 
with  gold !  Then  fear  took  hold  of  me  lest  he  might 
be  some  fish  beloved  of  Posidon,  or  perchance  some 
jewel  of  the  sea-grey  Amphitrite.  Gently  I  un- 
hooked him,  lest  ever  the  hooks  should  retain  some 
of  the  gold  of  his  mouth.  Then  I  dragged  him  on 
shore  with  the  ropes,  and  swore  that  never  again 
would  I  set  foot  on  sea,  but  abide  on  land,  and  lord 
it  over  the  gold. 

This  was  what  wakened  me,  but  for  the  rest,  set 
thy  mind  to  it,  my  friend,  for  I  am  in  dismay  about 
the  oath  I  swore. 

THE  FRIEND.  Nay,  never  fear,  thou  art  no  more 
sworn  than  thou  hast  found  the  golden  fish  of  thy 
vision ;  dreams  are  but  lies.  But  if  thou  wilt  search 
these  waters,  wide  awake,  and  not  asleep,  there  is 
some  hope  in  thy  slumbers ;  seek  the  fish  of  flesh, 
lest  thou  die  of  famine  with  all  thy  dreams  of 
gold !  " 


22  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

The  authenticity  of  this  piece  has  been  called 
in  question,7  but  it  possesses  the  subtile  charm  of 
a  picture  drawn  from  life,  and  is  worthy  of  com- 
parison with  any  other  Theocritean  poems  which 
paint  sunnier  phases  of  idyllic  existence.  It  is, 
moreover,  only  an  elaborate  rendering  of  the 
same  sort  of  illustration  that  has  been  cited  from 
bucolic  idylls,  and  forms  with  these  shorter 
glimpses  of  fishermen,  precedent  for  a  long  line 
of  piscatory  pastorals  by  later  writers.  Through- 
out the  existence  of  the  species,  too,  occasional 
eclogues  were  composed  with  a  view  to  repro- 
ducing the  realistic  effects  that  characterize  the 
story  of  Asphalion  and  his  friend.  This  realism, 
with  the  fact  that  the  two  characters  are  suffi- 
ciently different  as  to  afford  the  necessary  dra- 
matic contrast,  and  that  they  chat,  but  do  not 
sing,  has  been  called  evidence  of  mimic  origin. 
That  some  little  play  may  have  embodied  a  sim- 
ilar story  of  credulity  in  a  miraculous  dream  is 
likely  enough,  but  the  descriptive  side  of  the  idyll 
in  its  present  form  and  the  distinctly  serious, 
moralizing  tone  are  foreign  to  the  mime. 

Asphalion's  fear  that  his  catch  might  be  sacred 
to  some  sea-god  is  born  of  the  same  superstition 
to  which  reference  has  already  been  made.  It 
might  t>e  added  that  a  poet  whom  Theocritus 
probably  knew  at  Alexandria,  Callimachus,  calls 
the  "  chrysophrys  "  sacred  in  his  "  Galatea  " : 

"  Or  shall  I  rather  say  the  gold-browed  fish 
That  sacred  fish.  .  .  ." 

7  R.  J.  Cholmel'ey,  "  The  Idylls  of  Theocritus  Edited  with 
Introd.  and  Notes." 


ORIGINS   OF   THE    PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        23 

In  his  epigrams  the  same  writer  says  the  perch 
is  loved  by  the  gods,  while  a  fragment  by  Theo- 
critus, part  of  a  panegyric  on  Berenice,  mother 
of  his  patron,  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  mentions  a 
silver  fish: 

"And  if  any  man  that  hath  his  livelihood  from 
the  salt  sea,  and  whose  nets  serve  him  for  ploughs, 
prays  for  wealth,  and  luck  in  fishing,  let  him  sacri- 
fice at  midnight,  to  this  goddess,  the  sacred  fish  that 
men  call  '  silver-white/  for  that  it  is  brightest  of 
sheen  of  all, — then  let  the  fisher  set  his  nets,  and  he 
shall  draw  them  full  from  the  sea." 

Most  of  these  allusions  to  sacred  fish  may  be  ex- 
plained by  very  ancient  legends. 7a  Thus  the  dol- 
phins were  loved  by  Neptune  because  they  helped 
him  to  find  Amphitrite,  when  she  had  fled  from 
him.  Again,  the  nautilus  was  once  a  sailor  but 
had  been  transformed  by  Apollo,  who  had  become 
furious  with  him  because  he  had  taken  on  his 
ship  Ocyrhoe,  a  girl  whom  the  god  loved.  In 
like  manner,  all  the  other  sacred  fish  might  be 
explained  by  folk-lore. 

The  Greek  poems  most  closely  related  to  the 
Theocritean  fisher  idyll  are  certain  epigrams  by 
a  younger  contemporary,  Leonidas  of  Tarentum, 
who  is  thought  to  have  known  Theocritus  on  the 
island  of  Cos.  His  three  fisher  epigrams  resem- 
ble the  idyll  in  vocabulary  and  in  several  other 
important  particulars.  The  first  one  introduces 
the  fisher  Diophantus,  by  which  name  Theocritus 
addresses  the  friend  for  whom  he  composed  his 
piscatory  poem : 

7aCf.  the  fisher  in  The  Arabian  Nights,  Book  I.  His 
songs  are  prayers  like  those  in  Greek  epigram. 


24  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

"  A  well  curved  anchor,  and  long  spears,  a  fishing 
line  of  horse-hair,  large  baskets  for  holding  fish, 
with  a  weel  cunningly  wrought  for  the  finny  prey, 
impliments  of  fishers  who  roam  the  sea,  a  rugged 
trident,  spear  of  Posidon,  and  a  pair  of  oars  from 
light  fishing-skiffs — all  these  the  fisherman  Dio- 
phantus  set  up  to  the  king  of  his  craft,  as  custom 
is,  the  relics  of  his  ancient  calling." 

The  list  of  implements  is  very  much  the  same  as 
that  given  of  the  paraphernalia  in  the  cabin  of 
Asphalion,  and  is  enumerated  in  about  the  same 
order.  A  similar  list  and  a  wattled  cabin  are 
found  in  the  second  fisher  epigram : 

"  Theris  the  aged  fisherman,  whose  skill 
Taught  him  to  live  and  many  a  basket  fill 
With  fishes,  (for  their  plundering  foe  was  he, 
And  than  the  sea-fowl  oftener  tost  at  sea,) — 
Theris,   whose    few-oared   boat,   and   seine,    and 

hooks, 

Could  win  the  fishes  from  their  secret  nooks, 
Yet, — not  Arcturus,  nor  the  blasts  that  blow 
Down-rushing,  swept  this  aged  man  below: 
But,  like  a  lamp  long  burning,  and  whose  light 
Flickers,  self-spent,  and  is  extinguished  quite, 
In  a  rush  hut  he  died: — to  him  this  grave 
(No  wife  no  child,  he  had)   his  brother  fishers 

gave." 

The  third  of  this  group8  pictures  a  more  violent 
death,  and  may  be  paraphrased  as  follows : 

"  Parmis  the  far-famed  fisher,  best  reaper  of  the 
ocean  strand,  master  of  all  the  wiles  of  labrus, 
scarus  and  the  bold  bait-snapping  perch,  with  all  the 

8  A.  Pal.  VI.  4 ;  VII.  295 ;  VII.  504. 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        25 

caves  and  rocks  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  as  he 
caught  his  prey  by  the  reefs  of  the  dark  blue  deep, 
grew  sad,  and  pined  and  prayed  for  death  from  the 
waves.  Then  destruction  darted  upon  him  in  a 
whirl-wind,  striking  him  on  the  neck,  while  lines  and 
rod,  and  anchors  were  whirled  away,  for  the  thread 
of  his  life  was  spun,  and  a  fisherman  heaped  this 
mound  for  the  dead." 

The  realism  in  these  poems  and  the  elaborate  de- 
tailed treatment  mark  them  as  belonging  to  the 
same  class  as  the  Theocritean  idyll  of  the  two  old 
fishers,  while  occasional  extant  examples  of  later 
imitations  indicate  that  many  such  pieces  were 
undoubtedly  composed.  The  conventions  of  all 
are  essentially  the  same,  and  show  that  the  fisher 
epigram  constituted  a  class  by  itself. 

Bion  and  Moschus,  more  famous  disciples  of 
Theocritus,  wrote  no  fisher  poem.  Bion's  only 
picture  of  the  ocean  is  a  fragment  of  an  idyll 
imitated  probably  from  Theocritus'  complaint  of 
Polyphemus  to  Galatea,  while  the  studied  pretti- 
ness  of  a  description  by  Moschus,  of  Europa 
crossing  the  deep  on  the  bull's  back  marks  it  as 
the  illustration  of  a  mythological  "genre-pic- 
ture." Such  productions  were  typical  of  the  arti- 
ficial side  of  Alexandrian  letters,  and  are  said  in 
some  cases  to  have  been  inspired  by  wall-paint- 
ings.9 In  marked  contrast  with  such  marines 
stands  a  single  poem  in  which  Moschus  pictures 
the  life  of  fishers. 

9  At  Herculaneum  is  a  wall  painting  of  fishers.  Philo- 
stratus  the  Rhetorician  describes  a  painting  representing  a 
lively  fishing  scene.  We  even  find  an  old  fisher  seated  on 
a  rock  with  a  rod  in  hand  stamped  on  a  coin  from  old 
Crateia. 


26  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

"  When  the  wind  on  the  grey  salt  sea  blows  softly, 
then  my  weary  spirits  rise,  and  the  land  no  longer 
pleases  me,  and  far  more  doth  the  calm  allure  me. 
But  when  the  hoary  deep  is  roaring,  and  the  sea  is 
broken  up  into  foam,  and  the  waves  rage  high,  then 
lift  I  mine  eyes  unto  the  earth,  and  the  trees,  and 
fly  the  sea,  and  the  land  is  welcome,  and  the  shady 
wood  well  pleasing  in  my  sight,  where  even  if  the 
wind  blow  high,  the  pine  tree  sings  her  song. 
Surely  an  evil  life  leads  the  fisherman,  whose  home 
is  his  ship  and  his  labours  are  in  the  sea,  and  fishes 
thereof  are  his  wandering  spoil.  Nay,  sweet  to  me 
is  sleep  beneath  the  broad-leaved  plane-tree;  let  me 
love  to  listen  to  the  murmur  of  the  brook  hard  by, 
soothing,  not  troubling,  the  husbandman  with  it=> 
sound." 

The  poet  is  repelled  by  the  wilder  aspects  of  the 
ocean,  and  he  thinks  with  a  shudder  how  hard  is 
the  lot  of  fishermen  compared  with  that  of  the 
farmer,  who  need  not  fear  the  storm.  Moschus 
knew  no  more  about  fishing  than  he  did  about 
raising  sheep,  and  his  glimpse  of  marine  life  is 
as  far  removed  from  that  pictured  by  Theocritus 
as  his  bucolics  are  different  in  spirit  from  those 
by  his  great  predecessor. 

More  characteristic  of  the  Alexandrian  period 
are  epigrams  speaking  prettily  of  Venus  in  her 
character  of  wave-born  goddess,  of  nautilus 
spreading  tiny  sails  to  the  wind,  and  the  like.9a 
Even  the  poems  on  Glaucus  share  the  artificiality 
of  other  mythological  pieces,  if  we  may  judge 
from  fragments  such  as  this  by  the  poetess 
Hedyle:10 

"  See  epigrams  of  Callimachus. 
M  Athenaeus,  VII. 


ORIGINS   OF   THE    PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        27 

"  Bearing  a  gift  of  love,  a  mazy  shell, 
Fresh  from  the  Erythrean  rock,  and  with  it  too 
The  offspring,  yet  unfledged,  of  Alcyon, 
To  win  the  obdurate  maid.     He  gave  in  vain. 
Even  the  lone  Siren  on  the  neighboring  isle 
Pitied  the  lover's  tears.     For  as  it  chanced, 
He  swam  towards  the  shore  which  she  did  haunt, 
Nigh  to  th'  unquiet  caves  of  Aetna." 

Glaucus  here  comes  to  the  cave  of  his  beloved 
Scylla,  proffers  gifts,  and  being  rebuffed,  utters 
a  complaint.  The  poem  is  thus  a  chance  ante- 
cedent of  fisher  laments  in  eclogues  by  the  hu- 
manists. Hedyle's  son,  Hedylus,  is  said  to  have 
written  a  similar  piece,  in  which  the  fisher  Glau- 
cus strove  to  woo  the  nymph  Melicerta,  but  being 
rejected,  leaped  into  the  waves  and  became  a  god. 
All  these  stories  belong  to  the  literature  of  meta- 
morphosis, rather  than  to  that  of  the  fisher  pas- 
toral, and  find  their  most  familiar  expression  in 
Ovid. 

Between  the  days  of  Theocritus  and  those  of 
Sannazaro  fisher  eclogues  do  not  seem  to  have 
been  composed,  but  the  motive  appears  here  and 
there  in  other  forms  of  literature  with  which  the 
famous  humanist  may  well  have  been  more  or 
less  familiar.  Of  these  the  epistles  of  Alciphron 
(iSoA.D.  ?)  affect  to  be  intimate  correspondence 
between  the  stock  characters  of  the  mime — para- 
sites, courtesans,  shepherds,  fishers,  flirtatious 
wives  and  the  rest.  The  letters  give  tantalizing 
glimpses  of  unfinished  romance,  so  that  when  we 
read  them  we  see  as  in  a  kaleidoscope,  the  shift- 
ing, many-colored  life  in  decadent  Athens. 


28  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Whether  or  not  of  actual  mimic  origin,  they  pic- 
ture what  was  always  to  be  seen  on  the  stage,  and 
in  the  mimes. 

It  is  therefore  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the 
fisher  letters  may  help  us  to  understand  the  prob- 
able nature  of  the  mime  of  fisher-folk.  This 
seems  the  more  plausible  because  the  epistles  from 
fishermen  fall  naturally  into  two  groups,  one  of 
which  presents  matters  akin  to  those  in  the  recov- 
ered mimes,  while  the  other  group  is  perhaps 
more  closely  related  to  the  Theocritean  idyll. 
To  the  first  class  belong  the  missives  dealing  with 
the  motives  of  love  or  jealousy.  One  fisherman 
writes  to  his  wife,  praising  sea  life  as  more  desir- 
able than  that  ashore,  after  which  he  upbraids  her 
for  sneaking  away  so  often  to  Bacchanalian  revels 
at  Athens.  A  companion  piece  is  a  furious  note 
to  a  fisher  from  his  spouse,  accusing  him  of  flirt- 
ing with  a  young  courtesan,  and  threatening  to 
return  to  her  father's  care.  One  young  fellow, 
having  met  ill  luck,  asks  his  sweetheart  whether 
he  had  not  better  join  a  crew  of  prosperous  pi- 
rates. Another  youth  warns  his  comrade  against 
wasting  money  on  a  singing-girl,  but  receives  a 
flippant  reply,  scorning  the  good  counsel,  and 
declaring  passionate  love  for  the  damsel.  Again, 
a  fisher-maiden  writes  to  tell  her  mother  that  she 
is  so  desperately  in  love  with  a  handsome  pilot 
that  she  must  marry  him  or  leap  from  the  rocks 
of  Piraeus,  as  Sappho  did  from  the  Leucadian 
cliffs.  Her  mother  sends  an  irate  answer,  saying 
that  the  girl  "  needs  a  dose  of  hellebore,"  and  that 
if  her  father  hears  of  the  nonsense  he  will  throw 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        29 

her  to  the  fishes.  The  stories  thus  glanced  at  are 
obviously  like  those  represented  in  plays,  and  are 
the  earliest  pieces  extant  in  which  fishers  are  rep- 
resented as  being  in  love,  another  reason  for  as- 
suming that  the  epistles  are  of  mimic  suggestion. 

Besides  these  a  few  other  letters,  notable  for 
satirizing  conditions  in  the  city  should  be  classed 
with  the  mimic  epistles.  In  one  a  fisher  urges 
a  notorious  parasite  to  use  his  influence  to  bring 
him  rich  customers,  and  accuses  officers  of  the 
market  of  extorting  blackmail.  Another  expresses 
fear  of  impressment  in  the  Athenian  navy,  be- 
cause the  city  is  preparing  for  war.  A  very  lively 
missive  describes  a  crowd  of  effeminate  youths 
with  frisky  dancing-girls,  whom  a  fisherman  is 
hired  to  take  for  a  sail,  and  from  whom  he 
receives  handsome  pay.  The  last  of  this  lot  at- 
tacks usurers.  A  fisher  has  pawned  his  skiff  for 
money  with  which  to  have  his  seines  repaired,  but 
the  loan-shark  duns  him  until  he  is  forced  to  sell 
a  gold  chain  which  he  is  having  made  for  his  wife. 

The  second  group  of  epistles  has  to  do  with 
the  actual  pursuits  of  fishers,  and  here  Alciphron 
borrowed  hints  from  Theocritus,  just  as  he  did 
in  his  shepherd  and  vintage  pictures.  Presum- 
ably he  knew  the  city  better  than  the  country.  In 
one  letter  a  fisherman  tells  how  he,  with  several 
companions,  storm-bound  for  three  days  on  a 
desolate  shore,  took  refuge  in  a  miserable  cabin. 
Weary  and  hungry  they  kept  from  freezing  by  a 
drift-wood  fire,  but  after  the  tempest  they  ven- 
tured out  in  a  crazy  skiff,  and  caught  such  num- 
bers of  fish  that  the  corks  of  their  net  were  pulled 


3O  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

under.  Selling  the  largest  of  their  booty,  they 
had  small  fry  left  sufficient  for  their  wives  and 
children.  The  gray  coast,  the  hut,  the  old  boat, 
the  fishing  tackle,  the  fact  that  the  men  are  old, 
the  hunger  and  misery  are  all  very  much  as  we 
have  seen  them  in  Theocritus.  None  of  the  re- 
maining letters  shows  such  striking  resemblances 
with  the  idyll,  but  all  tell  of  poverty  and  hard- 
ship. One  man  complains  of  a  bad  master  who 
makes  him  fish  all  day  and  all  night;  another 
writes  to  his  wife  to  propose  giving  up  his  labor- 
ious craft  and  training  their  children  to  become 
husbandmen;  another  accuses  a  rich  fisher  of 
luring  away  his  assistants  by  high  wages,  and 
another  commends  a  recent  exchange  of  gifts — a 
sea-sparrow,  mullets  and  thirty-five  purple  fish 
for  a  pair  of  oars.  Three  epistles  concern  a  tat- 
tered net  which  a  surly  old  fellow  has  abandoned, 
but  which  he  refuses  to  give  to  a  poor  acquaint- 
ance. A  humorous  note  relates  that  a  fisher, 
whose  business  it  is  to  report  the  presence  of  fish 
to  others,  finds  a  place  where  the  water  is  dark 
with  tunnies.  Fishers  cast  a  great  net,  but  draw 
up — only  a  rotting  camel.  The  last  letter  of  this 
group  describes  an  approaching  storm,  and  rec- 
ommends an  attempt  to  bury  the  bodies  that  will 
be  washed  ashore  along  the  Sicilian  beaches. 

In  the  letters  about  actual  fishing  occasional 
descriptive  touches  recall  the  idyllic  life  as  we  see 
it  in  the  poems  of  Theocritus,  and  such  indebted- 
ness as  these  suggest  seems  the  more  probable 
because  Alciphron's  style  is  usually  rather  terse 
and  plain.  The  shepherd  epistles  and  those  by 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS       31 

fishers  alike  retain  many  of  the  pastoral  conven- 
tions, and  even  the  amoebean  construction  is  not 
entirely  lost  in  sequences  of  short  notes,  consist- 
ing of  questions  and  answers.  It  is  possibly  a 
fair  criticism  to  say  that  the  letters  combine  in 
prose,  elements  of  mimic  origin  with  elements 
due  to  the  influence  of  the  earlier  pastoral. 

In  Greek  later  than  the  work  of  Alciphron  but 
few  compositions  have  any  intimate  connection 
with  the  Theocritean  pastoral  of  fishers,  though 
the  conventions  emphasized  by  Leonidas  linger 
on  in  later  epigrams.  Amid  sea  pictures  the  gods 
of  fishermen  chat  confidentially  in  Lucian's  "  Dia- 
logues of  the  Sea  Gods,"  but  only  to  give  witty 
expression  to  the  author's  skepticism  towards 
mythology.  Their  imitations  of  earlier  poets  and 
their  amoebean  form  give  them  a  place  beside 
the  eclogue,  and  the  dialogues  may  'be  said  to 
form  connecting  links  between  the  mythological 
idyll  and  the  humanistic  eclogue  of  marine  myth- 
ology, often  considered  as  one  species  by  Italian 
poets.  Lucian's  play,  "  The  Fisherman,"  has  no 
relationship  with  the  mimes  or  idylls,  but  takes 
its  title  from  a  scene  in  which  the  poet  sits  on  a 
parapet  of  the  Acropolis,  equipped  with  the  rod 
of  a  Piraean  fisherman.  His  bait  of  gold  and 
figs  attracts  a  swarm  of  brilliantly  colored  fish, 
which  he  catches :  "  Salmo  Cynicus,"  "  Flat  Sole 
Plateship,"  and  other  philosophers  clad  in  scales. 

Bearing  somewhat  the  same  relationship  to 
eclogues  of  fishermen  that  Virgil's  Georgics  do 
to  those  of  shepherds,  were  the  Greek  verse 
treatises  on  fish  and  fishing.  No  fewer  than  six 


32  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

didactic  epics  of  the  sort  were  composed,  but 
only  that  by  Oppian  (211-217  A.  D.)  is  extant 
in  complete  form.  It  is  written  in  hexameter, 
and  combines  material  based  on  observation  with 
much  extraordinary  fish-lore  gathered  from  float- 
ing material.  In  the  last  part  of  the  treatise  the 
accounts  given  of  the  methods  of  capturing  fish 
by  men  on  various  coasts  lend  a  few  pictures  akin 
to  independent  idylls.  Most  of  the  poem,  how- 
ever, is  like  Pliny's  Natural  History  put  into 
verse.  The  poems  as  a  whole  have  little  relation- 
ship with  the  piscatory  eclogue  other  than  that 
implied  in  the  fact  that  they  are  written  in  verse 
and  tell  much  about  the  practices  of  fishers. 

More  important  are  the  later  Greek  epigrams, 
mention  of  which  has  already  been  made,  and  a 
few  examples  of  which  will  serve  to  show  how 
little  these  pieces  differ  from  their  ancient  models. 
The  first  is  by  Maecius  Quintus,  of  Smyrna  (380 
A.  D.?),  an  epic  poet: 

"  To  thee  Priapus,  that  dost  delight  in  the  sunken 
reefs,  worn  down  by  the  waves  of  Nessis  on  the 
sea-coast,  and  in  the  overhanging  cliffs,  has  Paris, 
the  fisherman,  hung  up  a  crab,  with  its  oyster-like 
shell,  killed  by  the  cleverly  catching  rod;  the  flesh 
he  roasted  over  a  fire  and  happily  crunched  with  his 
teeth,  half-eaten  by  age,  but  the  shell  has  he  given 
to  thee.  Wherefore  do  thou  give  him,  not  abund- 
ance, but  the  power  to  successfully  catch  with  his 
fishing-line  fish  to  quiet  the  pangs  of  hunger. 

Another  is  by  the  "  Prefect  of  Egypt " : 

"  The  aged  Cinyras,  on  ceasing  to  labour,  has 
offered  up  to  the  nymphs  these  nets  worn  by  the  con- 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        33 

tinued  catching  of  fish.  For  no  longer  was  he  able, 
with  a  trembling  hand  to  cast  the  circular  busom  of 
the  open  net.  If  there  be  the  offering  of  a  small 
present,  this,  ye  nymphs,  is  no  blame  (to  me)  ;  since 
the  whole  life  of  Cinyras  is  this." 

One  by  Serapion  of  Alexandria  was  suggested  by 
a  bone : 

"  This  is  the  bone  of  a  hardworking  man.  Surely 
thou  wert  either  a  seafaring  trafficker,  or  a  fisher- 
man in  a  blind  wave.  Say  to  mortals,  that,  while 
we  are  urging  onwards  to  other  hopes,  on  such  a 
hope  as  this  are  we  broken  up." 

The  last  two  that  will  be  cited  were  written  as 
late  as  the  middle  (540  A.  D.  ?)  of  the  sixth  cen- 
tury, under  Justinian.  The  first  is  by  Paulus 
"  Silentuarius,"  or  the  "  privy  counselor,"  who 
sent  epigrams  from  the  court  at  Constantinople 
to  the  author  of  the  second,  Agathias,  anthologist 
and  historian,  who  used  to  send  in  reply  epigrams 
from  his  country  house  on  the  Bosphorus : 

"The  old  Amyntichus  bound  a  net  with  lead  at 
its  extremity  round  a  trident,  after  ceasing  from  his 
toils  in  the  sea,  and  said  to  the  deity,  while 
shedding  tears  from  his  eye-lids,  like  the  swell  of 
the  sea — "  Thou  knowest,  O  blessed  power,  that  I 
am  past  work.  But  limb-wasting  poverty,  from 
which  there  is  no  escape,  is  young  even  at  the 
threshold  of  old  age.  Nourish  still  the  gasping  old 
man,  but  from  the  land,  as  thou  choosest,  O  ruler 
of  the  land  and  sea." 

The  quotation  from  Agathias  is  the  only  fisher 
epigram  to  use  a  love  motive : 

4 


34  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

"  A  fisherman  was  employed  in  catching  fish. 
Him  did  a  damsel  of  property  see,  and  was  affected 
in  her  heart  with  desire,  and  made  him  the  partner 
of  her  bed.  But  he,  after  a  life  of  poverty,  took  on 
himself  the  swell  of  all  kinds  of  high  bearing.  And 
Fortune  with  a  smile  was  standing  by,  and  said  to 
Venus, — "  This  is  not  your  contest,  but  mine."11 

Some  of  the  poems  just  cited  may  have  been 
composed  a  thousand  years  after  those  first  quoted 
in  this  book,  yet  in  them  we  find  emphasized  the 
same  old  conventions,  and  the  last  fishermen  in 
ancient  Greek  poetry  are  like  the  first,  aged,  sea- 
worn,  poor  and  patient.  This  is  just  what  might 
be  expected,  because  real  fishers  differed  little 
from  age  to  age,  and  it  was  not  until  the  times  of 
later  humanism  that  new  conventions  were  con- 
trived for  idylls  in  which  they  figured. 

A  passage  by  Nonnus  (fifth  century  A.  D.)  in 
that  extraordinary  hexameter  poem  of  mythol- 
ogy, the  "  Dionysiaca,"  depicts  with  much  vigor  a 
set  of  companion  figures  like  those  carved  on  the 
shield  of  Achilles,  or  perhaps  like  those  of  some 
mural  painting.  Bacchus,  on  his  way  to  the  land 
of  Cadmus,  is  represented  as  gazing  with  admira- 
tion on  Tyre  and  the  sea-shore  near  by.  Side 
by  side  he  sees  the  neatherd  and  the  goatherd, 
with  their  grazing  beasts ;  he  listens  with  delight 
to  the  shrill  music  of  the  pastoral  pipes  and  to 
the  songs  and  shouts  of  fishermen,  busy  by  their 
skiffs  or  dragging  nets  to  land.  In  one  place  a 
dryad's  voice  sounds  from  an  oak  in  a  wood  that 

11  The  Greek  Anthology  as  selected  for  the  use  of  West- 
minster, Eton  and  other  public  schools-.  Also  Edwards' 
s«lection>,  7761,  784,  556,  797.  Eton,  70. 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        35 

overhangs  the  surf,  and  below  a  nereid  is  wan- 
toning. Ceres  speaks  to  Neptune,  herds  bellow, 
sailors  talk  with  wood-cutters,  and  the  rattle  of 
rigging  mingles  with  the  murmur  of  forest  leaves. 
(Dion.  40,  327-336.) 

Fishers  appear  also  in  the  romances,  the  last 
prose  in  which  the  genius  of  ancient  Greece  shines 
conspicuously.  In  the  famous  pastoral  "  Daphnis 
and  Chloe,"lla  for  instance,  a  picture  of  fishermen 
is  prettily  introduced,  and  in  a  manner  to  illus- 
trate the  old  contrast  between  the  idyllic  life  of 
shepherds  and  that  of  their  neighbors,  the  fisher 
folk.  Daphnis  sat  with  Chloe  on  a  hill  near  the 
sea: 

"  While  they  were  at  their  meal,  which,  however, 
consisted  more  of  kisses  than  of  food,  a  fishing 
boat  was  seen  proceeding  along  the  coast.  There 
was  no  wind  stirring;  a  perfect  calm  prevailed;  so 
having  taken  to  their  oars  the  crew  were  rowing 
vigorously,  their  object  being  to  carry  some  newly- 
caught  fish  to  a  rich  man  in  the  city.  They  dipped 
their  oars,  doing  what  sailors  usually  do  to  beguile 
their  toil.  The  boatswain  sung  a  sea-song,  and  the 
rest  joined  in  chorus  at  stated  intervals.  When  they 
were  in  the  open  sea,  the  sound  was  lost,  their  voices 
being  dispersed  into  the  air,  but  when  running  under 
a  headland  they  came  into  any  hollow  and  crescent 
shaped  bay,  the  sound  became  much  louder,  and 
the  song  of  the  boatswain  was  distinctly  heard  on 
shore.  A  deep  valley  here  sloped  down  from  the 
plain  above,  which  received  into  it  the  sound,  as  into 
an  instrument  of  music,  and  repeated  with  the  most 
perfect  imitation  every  note  which  was  uttered. 
There  could  be  heard  the  distinction  between  the 

Ua  By  Longus. 


36  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

dash  of  the  oars,  and  the  voices  of  the  sailors;  and 
a  very  pleasing  sound  it  was;  beginning  on  the  sea, 
the  duration  of  its  echo  upon  shore  was  proportioned 
to  its  greater  lateness  in  commencing. 

Daphnis,  understanding  the  nature  of  the  echo, 
turned  his  attention  solely  to  the  sea,  and  was  de- 
lighted with  viewing  the  boat  as  it  glided  by  the 
shore  quicker  than  a  bird  could  fly.  At  the  same 
time  he  endeavored  to  store  up  some  of  these 
strains  in  his  memory,  that  he  might  play  them  on 
his  pipe.  Chloe,  who  had  never,  till  now,  heard 
what  is  called  an  echo,  turned  first  to  the  sea  and 
listened  to  the  boatmen,  as  they  sang,  and  then 
looked  round  to  the  woods.  .  .  ,"ia 

In  another  romance, "  The  Loves  of  Clitophon  and 
Leucippe,"  by  Achilles  Tatius,13  a  crew  of  purple 
fishers  in  their  boat  figure  in  one  of  the  many 
adventures  with  pirates  so  characteristic  of  these 
stories. 

More  significant  than  such  chance  illustration 
is  a  passage  in  the  "  Ethiopian  History  of  Thea- 
genes  and  Chariclea,"14  by  Heliodorus.  This  is  a 
considerable  interlude  about  fisher- folk  intro- 
duced as  a  complement  to  analogous  bucolic  inter- 
ludes, and  carefully  elaborated  into  a  picture  of 
quiet  life  contrasting  sharply  with  the  wild  and 
disconnected  episodes  that  precede  and  follow  it. 
The  narrator,  Calasiris,  tells  how  his  ship  anchored 
near  Zacynthus  after  a  stormy  and  perilous  voy- 
age. Rowing  ashore  he  trudged  along  the  beach 
until  he  came  upon  a  hut  before  which  sat  an 

12  Bk.   3,   pp.    50.     Tr.,   Bohn's  Libraries. 

18  Bk.  5,  pp.  441.     Bohn's  Lib. 

14  Bk.  5,  pp.  138-142.     Tr.  Bohn's  Libraries. 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        37 

aged  fisher,  mending  a  tattered  seine.  An  amus- 
ing dialogue  ensued,  the  traveler  asking  several 
times  for  lodging,  and  the  old  man  replying  that 
the  net  was  torn  on  a  promontory  while  his  son 
had  charge  of  their  fishing  boat.  Seeing  at  length 
that  the  fellow  was  deaf,  Creon  shouted  his  ques- 
tion in  his  ear  and  this  time  was  understood. 
Tyrrhenus,  for  so  the  deaf  man  was  called,  re- 
ceived Calasiris  and  his  two  wards  into  his  cabin, 
where  for  some  days  they  lived  happily  with  the 
fisherman's  family,  all  eating  at  one  rude  table 
and  going  fishing  with  the  host,  who  proved,  of 
course,  a  master-hand  at  the  craft. 

At  length  one  day  Tyrrhenus  took  his  guest  to 
a  remote  bay,  where  after  swearing  by  Neptune 
and  all  the  sea-gods  that  he  loved  him  well,  he  dis- 
closed the  fact  that  a  pirate  was  then  holding  his 
vessel  in  hiding  behind  a  nearby  cape,  and  sending 
out  spies  every  little  while  to  learn  when  the  voy- 
agers would  set  sail.  Tyrrhenus  had  sold  them 
fish  and  had  thus  learned  their  plan  to  seize 
the  beautiful  Chariclea.  Thus  warned,  Calasiris 
embarked  on  another  ship,  in  which  he  escaped 
by  night. 

The  ghost  of  Ulysses  having  appeared  to  Cala- 
siris in  a  dream,  and  reproached  him  for  not 
sacrificing  to  him,  as  guardian  spirit  of  those 
coasts,  the  fisherman  now  hurried  to  make  pro- 
pitiatory offerings  on  the  rocks  by  the  sea,  and 
thus  assisted,  the  fugitives  were  enabled  to  reach 
Crete  in  safety. 

This  prose  idyll,  complete  in  itself,  is  the  most 
elaborate  picture  of  the  kind  in  ancient  Greek. 


3  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

The  influence  of  Theocritus  is  strongly  suggested 
by  imagery  incidental  to  description  of  the  cabin, 
the  tackle,  and  the  boat,  as  well  as  by  the  delinea- 
tion of  the  character  of  Tyrrhenus,  aged,  sea- 
worn,  superstitious,  wretchedly  poor,  yet  content 
with  his  lot,  and  hospitable  to  the  stranger.  Thus 
in  these  comparatively  late  romances  we  again 
find  the  fisher  and  the  shepherd  both  living  the 
idyllic  life.  Moreover,  the  sort  of  existence  led 
by  Tyrrhenus  bears  the  same  relationship  to  that 
led  by  Daphnis  and  Chloe  as  the  Homeric  fishers 
do  to  Homeric  swains,  and  it  has  been  pointed 
out  that  this  relationship  apparently  remains  iden- 
tical wherever  the  two  motives  occur  in  the  same 
literary  form,  whether  in  comedies,  mimes,  epi- 
grams, epistles  or  romances.  It  should  be  added 
that  although  so  much  of  ancient  Greek  poetry 
has  been  lost,  the  relationship  under  discussion, 
together  with  the  relative  importance  of  the  fisher 
and  of  the  swain  in  pastoral,  is  shown  clearly 
enough  by  the  extant  pieces  which  have  already 
been  mentioned. 

It  has  been  shown  that  piscatory  conventions 
originated  and  became  fixed  in  the  same  manner 
as  did  those  in  bucolic  poems.  The  fisher  idyll 
about  the  marvelous  dream  was  perhaps  inspired 
by  the  poet's  reminiscent  sense  of  contrast  be- 
tween a  highly  complex  city  life  and  that  along 
the  desolate  sea-shore,  just  as  the  bucolics  spring 
from  an  analogous  sense  of  difference  between 
the  same  complex  existence  and  that  of  sunny 
Sicily.  Obviously,  too,  the  contrast  between  the 
occasional  fishermen  whom  Theocritus  introduces 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS       39 

and  his  herdsmen  or  shepherds,  is  only  that  inevi- 
table on  a  broad  canvas  painted  from  life.  The 
minute  detail  with  which  the  poet  enumerates  the 
implements  and  tackle  in  Asphalion's  hut,  or  fol- 
lows each  step  in  the  playing  of  the  mysterious 
fish,  is  the  result  of  actual  observation.  Had 
Virgil  imitated  this  realistic  idyll15  any  number 
of  imitators  might  have  essayed  composing  sim- 
ilar pieces,  but  as  it  was,  the  modern  fisher  eclogue 
originated  in  a  blending  of  Theocritean  with  Vir- 
gilian  concepts  and  conventions,  which  enjoyed  a 
certain  vogue  among  the  humanists  of  the  six- 
teenth century  in  Italy. 

THE  FISHER  IN  CLASSICAL  LATIN 

Descriptions  of  fishermen  are  found  in  Roman 
adaptations  of  Greek  dramas  and  elsewhere,  but 
the  extant  examples  have  little  connection  with 
one  another,  and  would  hardly  merit  citing  but 
for  the  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  humanists 
of  precedent  in  classical  Latin.  In  a  play  by 
Plautus  (254-184  B.  C.)  "Rudens,"  or  "The 
Shipwreck,"  thought  to  be  a  Latin  rendering  of 
some  lost  work  of  the  Greek  Diphylus,  two  slaves 
go  fishing  at  night  (Act  4,  scene  3),  and  one  of 
them  pulls  up  a  wallet  in  his  net.  This  night 
scene  with  the  garrulous  chatter  of  the  poor 
fishermen  about  the  ownership  of  the  strange 
catch,  may  have  been  suggested  by  the  story  of 

15  Moretum,  a  realistic  account  of  a  poor  man  making 
a  salad  (sometimes  attributed  to  Virgil),  resembles  the 
fisher  idyll  in  some  respects.  A  similar  Pseudo-Virgilian 
piece  is  "  Copa." 


40  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Asphalion.  This  is  made  more  likely  by  another 
passage  in  which  Plautus  introduces  a  band  of 
fishermen  tramping  along  the  beach  towards  the 
temple  of  Venus  (Act  2,  scene  i),  chatting  as 
they  go.  One  describes  their  experiences,  tell- 
ing of  their  struggles  with  nets  or  rods  in 
freezing  water — "this  is  all  their  sport — this 
all  their  exercise."  Their  days  and  nights  are 
spent  in  trapping  lobsters  and  crabs,  or  in  tearing 
oysters  from  the  rocks.  Many  a  day  they  must 
go  home  empty-handed,  "  soused  and  pickled,"  so 
that  life  on  the  rough  sea  is  a  sorry,  hopeless 
affair  at  best.  Unless  they  secure  fish  they  must 
go  supperless.  Talking  thus  they  enter  the  sa- 
cred fane  in  order  to  perform  sacrifice  to  the 
goddess,  that  they  may  secure  her  favor  and  so 
have  good  luck  in  fishing.  Trachalio,  meeting 
them  there,  calls  them  (Act  2,  scene  2),  "sea- 
thieves,"  and  a  "starved  generation."  Striking 
verbal  resemblances  make  it  likely  that  the  play- 
wright imitated  this  interlude  from  the  picture 
of  fishing  life  given  by  Theocritus  in  his  twenty- 
first  idyll.  A  similar  illustration  occurs  in 
Seneca's  "  Hercules  Furens,"  where16  a  chorus  of 
Thebans  describes  dawn,  with  the  commencement 
of  the  labors  of  man,  and  the  sounds  of  animals 
and  birds.  They  speak  of  the  shepherd,  of  the 
mariner  setting  sail,  and  then : 

"  Then  another  man,  a  fisherman  resting  on  the 
wave-indented  rock,  is  engaged  either  in  baiting 
afresh  his  unsuccessful  hook,  or,  all  anxiety,  beholds 
in  mental  prospect  the  reward  of  his  patience  already 
grasped  in  his  right  hand." 

"Act  I.,  154-158. 


ORIGINS   OF   THE   PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        41 

In  Latin  mimes  fishermen  were  characters,  as 
in  the  Greek.  Decimus  Laberius,  for  instance, 
wrote  one  called,  presumably  from  the  principal 
character,  "  Piscator."  This  is  said  to  have  been 
one  of  many  imitations  of  Sophron,  but  unfor- 
tunately the  Latin  fragments  are  as  few  in  num- 
ber as  the  Greek.  Of  another  play  by  Laberius, 
"  The  Crab,"  there  remains  but  part  of  one  line. 
The  longer  remnants  of  two  fisher  farces,  "  The 
Fishermen,"  and  "  The  Sea-shell,"  by  the  comic 
poet  Pomponius  Bononiens  are  almost  as  unsatis- 
factory. 

Turning  now  to  poetry,  we  find  that  Virgil  does 
not  even  mention  fishermen  in  his  pastorals.  His 
only  allusions  to  fishers  are  a  few  lines  in  his 
first  "  Georgic,"17  incidental  to  an  account  of  the 
primitive  arts  of  man,  and  an  account  of  the 
fisher  Menaetes,  in  the  Aeneid.  The  first  of 
these  passages  pictures  one  man  dragging  his  net 
through  a  broad  stream,  another  putting  out  into 
the  deep  sea  with  seines,  and  a  third  busy  with 
hook  and  line.  Menaetes  is  one  of  the  victims  to 
the  fury  of  Turnus  in  battle.  The  youth  had 
gone  into  the  war  unwillingly,  preferring  his 
quiet  life  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Lerna,  where  he 
had  lived  in  a  humble  cabin.  The  neighboring 
waters  supplied  him  with  plenty  of  fish,  so  that 
he  remained  content,  happily  ignorant  of  the  ways 
of  the  grasping  rich,  for  his  father  was  very  poor, 
and  hired  the  land  which  he  tilled.  The  lines 
about  this  unfortunate  fisherman  were  probably 

17  L.  142  fol. 


42  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

imitated  by  Ovid  (Met.  3,  582-591).  Pentheus 
of  Thebes,  furious  at  Bacchus,  whom  he  wishes 
to  destroy,  demands  the  god's  name  and  receives 
this  reply: 

"  My  name,  said  he,  is  Acaetes,  my  country 
Maeonia:  my  parents  of  humble  stock.  My  father 
left  me  no  fields  for  rough  bullocks  to  cultivate,  nor 
any  wool-bearing  flocks,  nor  any  herds.  He  too, 
was  poor;  and  it  was  his  practice  with  a  rod  of 
reed,  and  line  and  hook,  to  catch  the  leaping  fish. 
When  he  gave  up  the  pursuit,  he  said  to  me,  "  Re- 
ceive the  wealth  I  own,  and  cling  to  it,  successor  to 
my  endeavors,"  and  dying,  he  left  me  naught  except 
the  waters — this  alone  may  I  call  my  patrimony." 

Mention  has  been  made  of  the  story  of  Glaucus 
in  Greek  literature.  A  fragment  on  this  myth18 
has  been  attributed  to  Aeschylus  (by  Athenaeus, 
Strabo,  and  Pausanias)  and  longer  passages  are 
extant  from  poems  by  Alexander  of  Aetolia  and 
by  others.  Of  the  Romans  Cicero  is  said  by 
Plutarch  to  have  composed  a  poem  on  the  fisher- 
man Glaucus,  but  by  far  the  best  picture  of  the 
sort  is  to  be  found  in  Ovid's  Glaucus  and  Scylla,18a 
some  lines  of  which  are  probably  reminiscent  of 
the  Greek  fisher  idylls. 

Another  isolated  example  of  the  same  sort  is 
given  in  Lucan's19  "Pharsalia"  (V.  511-560). 

18  Met.    13,    921-955.      To    Ovid,    too,    has    often    been 
attributed    an    incomplete    verse    treatise    on    fishing,    the 
"  Halieutica." 

18a  Fragments  of  two  pieces  about  Glaucus  are  attributed 
to  Aeschylus.  One  may  be  part  of  a  marine  satyr  drama. 

19  A   poem   on   the   war    between    Caesar    and    Pompey. 
Lucan  died  65  A.  D. 


ORIGINS   OF   THE    PASTORAL   OF   FISHERS        43 

A  dialogue  between  Caesar  and  an  old  fisher  is 
notable  as  giving  a  minute  description  of  an  old 
cabin,  the  boat,  and  other  equipment  evidently 
taken  from  Theocritus,  and  deliberately  sketched 
as  background  for  the  conversation.  The  pas- 
sage thus  constitutes  a  piscatory  idyll  inserted  in 
a  longer  work. 

The  only  fisher  poem  of  any  length  in  classical 
Latin  is  the  "  Mosella,"  one  of  the  "  idyllia  "  of 
Ausonius  (387  A.  D. ?),  a  piece  in  hexameter, 
and  843  lines  long.  Vivid  pictures  of  the  scenery 
along  the  banks  of  the  river  Mosella  (Meuse) 
are  followed  by  the  enumeration  and  characteri- 
zation of  all  the  fish  that  swam  its  waters,  ren- 
dered after  the  manner  of  the  didactic  epic.  A 
considerable  portion  of  the  piece  is  devoted  to  a 
very  lively  description  of  the  fishermen  of  the 
Meuse,  made  from  actual  observation.  There  are 
men  in  boats  dragging  nets  in  midstream,  men 
watching  the  corks  of  little  nets  in  shallower 
water,  men  perched  on  the  banks  or  on  rocks, 
armed  with  rods  of  cane,  watching  the  floats 
bobbing  on  the  water,  or  jerking  in  the  prey. 
One  boy  has  the  ill  fortune  to  lose  the  largest  of 
his  catch,  which  manages  to  flap  its  way  back 
into  the  river,  whereupon  he  leaps  in  after  it, 
"  like  Glaucus,"  trying  to  recapture  it  by  swim- 
ming. This  poem  was  a  favorite  with  the  English- 
man, Izaak  Walton,  who  quotes  from  it  in  "  The 
Compleat  Angler,"  and  it  was  among  the  pieces 
which  Sannazaro,  the  first  of  the  humanist  writers 
of  fisher  eclogues,  is  known  to  have  studied.  If 
it  had  any  influence  on  the  piscatory  pastoral, 


44  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

however,  it  was  limited  to  the  furnishing  of 
fisher  lore,  and  that  was  always  to  be  found  in 
Pliny. 

From  such  quotations  as  have  been  given  thus 
far,  it  may  readily  be  seen  that  the  fisher  poems 
extant  in  ancient  Greek  and  Latin  are  not  of  suffi- 
cient importance  to  be  classed  as  a  distinct  lit- 
erary species.  They  constitute  merely  a  special 
branch  of  the  pastoral,  which  failed  to  attain  any 
considerable  proportions  during  classical  times, 
and  which  humanists  of  the  early  renaissance 
ignored,  just  as  Virgil  had  done.  It  remained 
for  a  later  poet,  Giacopo  Sannazaro,  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  neglect  into  which  the  fisher  con- 
vention had  fallen,  and  to  compose  in  the  learned 
tongue  the  first  set  of  what  he  called  "piscatory 
eclogues." 


CHAPTER  II 

SANNAZARO  AND  His  IMITATORS  ON  THE 
CONTINENT 

Sannazaro,  or  as  his  fellow  humanists  called 
him,  Actius  Sincerus,  was  born  of  parents  of 
Spanish  descent  at  Naples  in  1458.  For  some 
years  he  lived  with  his  mother  in  San  Cipriano, 
whence  he  returned  to  his  native  city  while  still 
a  youth.  He  fell  in  love  with  the  beautiful  Car- 
mosina  Boni facia,  but  proved  almost  as  shy  and 
unsuccessful  a  lover  as  had  Dante,  and  finally  in 
despair  wandered  away  into  France.  When  he 
came  back  Carmosina  had  died.  His  bitter  grief 
found  expression  in  the  last  pages  of  his  famous 
pastoral  romance,  and  also  in  the  Latin  eclogues 
which  he  composed  at  a  later  date.  He  soon  be- 
came a  distinguished  member  of  the  "Academia 
Pontana,"  a  society  of  scholars  who  met  at  the 
house  of  his  friend  Pontano.  Some  of  his  Latin 
verses  gained  favor  for  him  at  the  court  of  Fred- 
erick of  Aragon,  with  whom  he  went  into  exile 
in  France.  He  returned  to  Naples  in  1503,  after 
the  death  of  his  lord,  and  seems  to  have  then 
lived  at  the  home  of  Cassandra  Marchesia,  his 
friend  and  platonic  love. 

It  is  likely  that  some  of  the  fisher  eclogues  were 

among  his  early  productions.     The  Arcadia  is 

thought  to  have  been  composed  in  its  original 

form  when  the  poet  was  only  twenty-three,  and 

45 


46  IDYLLS   OF    FISHERMEN 

Sannazaro  himself  alludes  to  it  as  his  first  work, 
adding  that  the  piscatories  were  written  not  long 
afterwards,  and  with  the  same  youthful  zeal : 

"Nor  less  did  my  enthusiasm  drive  me,  too, 
among  the  band  of  fishermen  to  cast  my  lines  in  the 
watery  bays  and  to  enclose  in  empty  lobster-pots 
deceptive  bait,  and  to  tempt  with  the  hook  the  herds 
that  wander  through  the  waves,  since  I  was  the 
first  to  go  down  to  the  salt  waves,  daring  to  render 
in  words  sounds  yet  untried."1 

Having  made  this  claim  to  the  invention  of  fisher 
verse,  he  mentions  his  elegies,  epigrams,  wars  and 
exile  as  of  later  date.  Finally,  that  he  had  com- 
pleted at  least  some  of  the  eclogues  before  leaving 
his  country  is  made  plain  by  some  lines  in  "  De 
Hortis  Hesperidum,"2  a  poem  by  his  friend  Pon- 
tano.  The  learned  humanist  laments  the  exile  of 
Sannazaro  and  alludes  to  his  fame  as  the  author 
of  piscatory  idylls. 

That  Sannazaro  should  have  composed  these 
pastorals  of  the  seashore  is  not  extraordinary. 
He  was  very  fond  of  his  Villa  Mergellina,  perched 
on  cliffs  overlooking  the  Bay  of  Naples,  and  could 
watch  fishermen  at  any  time,  as  they  drew  their 
nets  and  sang  their  songs.  Within  sight  of  the 
blue  Mediterranean,  too,  he  first  met  Carmosina, 
and  walked  with  her  along  the  shores,  so  it  is  not 
unnatural  that  he  should  make  her  a  fisher  girl 
in  his  eclogues,  and  himself  a  fisherman.  Like 
a  true  humanist,  however,  he  disregarded  the  na- 
tive madrigals  of  the  coast,  turning  for  his  models 

1  Bk.  3,  elegy  2,  53-582. 
3Bk.  2. 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  47 

to  Theocritus  and  Virgil.  The  Greek  idylls  fur- 
nished him  occasional  illustration,  but  his  greater 
indebtedness  to  the  Mantuan  is  so  obvious  that 
an  early  biographer  says  of  it: 

"  Never  did  he  turn  his  eyes  from  the  greatness  of 
Vergil,  whom  he  admired  so  much  that  every  year 
in  solemn  feast  with  his  friends  he  celebrated  the 
birthday  of  the  great  Roman." 

This  adoration  of  Virgil  accounts  for  the  gen- 
eral plan  of  the  fisher  eclogues,  which  was  to 
imitate  the  famous  bucolics  in  marine  coloring, 
if  I  may  use  the  term.  Hence  in  the  humanist's 
poems  Arcadian  pastures  rise  into  the  bold  out- 
line of  the  fairest  coast  in  the  world,  the  usual 
inland  quiet  is  troubled  by  the  murmur  of  tides, 
or  by  the  tramp  of  surf  along  sounding  beaches, 
while  the  melody  of  the  lark  or  of  the  nightingale 
is  changed  to  the  hoarse  cries  of  divers  or  of 
halcyons.  By  a  similar  analogy  swains  are  trans- 
formed into  fishermen,  and  rustic  gods  into  ocean 
gods.  In  place  of  Pan,  guardian  of  flocks  and 
herds,  father  of  country  song,  we  find  dark-green 
Proteus,  shepherd  of  the  sea-calves,  skilled  in 
song  and  prophecy.  The  "  Carpathian  wizard's 
hook"  is  wielded  to  prod  throngs  of  drowsy  seals, 
while  in  his  webby  clutch  the  reed  pipe  becomes 
a  conch,  the  deep  notes  of  which  are  echoed  "  by 
scaly  Triton's  winding  shell."  The  oracles  of 
Apollo  yield  to  "  old  sooth-saying  Glaucus'  spell," 
every  nymph  turns  nereid,  and  all  the  other  divin- 
ities of  the  land  become  the  corresponding  divin- 
ities of  the  sea. 

Such  protean  metamorphosis  is  not  only  applied 
to  the  general  conception  of  the  piscatory  ec- 


4  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

logues,  each  of  which  is  the  marine  equivalent 
for  some  one  of  Virgil's,  but  extends  to  the  entire 
detail  and  imagery.  A  few  examples  will  make 
this  clear.  In  his  lament  for  Daphnis8  Virgil 
pictures  grief  so  general  that  no  cattle  would 
drink  or  eat,  while  woody  hills  reechoed  the 
sounds  of  mourning  until  even  Libyan  lions  roared 
in  sympathy.  Sannazaro  says4  that  sorrow  for 
the  death  of  the  fisher  girl  Phyllis  was  so  great 
that  no  dolphin  would  leap  or  play,  and  that 
rocky  shores  rang  with  the  sympathetic  plaints  of 
ravens,  coots,  and  gulls.  The  sorrow  of  the 
nymphs  and  Apollo  for  the  dead  shepherd  finds 
a  counterpart  in  the  fisher's  appeal  to  the  nereids 
and  Glaucus.  Lycidas  longs  to  have  Glaucus 
"  give  him  some  of  his  magic  grass  "  that  he  may 
become  a  sea-god  and  so  leave  the  hated  land. 
Even  Virgil's  deification  of  Daphnis  as  guardian 
of  shepherds  is  imitated  in  the  deification  of 
Phyllis: 

"  But  them,  whether  thou  dwellest  happy  in  heaven 
above  or  now  among  the  Elysian  shades  and  the 
awful  bands  of  Lethe  dost  follow  fish  through  the 
stagnant  streams ;  or  dost  gather  eternal  flowers  in 
thy  beautiful  hand — narcissus,  and  crocus,  and  long- 
lived  amaranth,  and  dost  mingle  delicate  seaweed 
with  pale  violet,  look  upon  us  and  come  propitious. 
Henceforth  shalt  thou  ever  be  guardian  spirit  of  the 
waters  ever  friendly  to  fishermen."5 

8  EC.  V.  4Ec.  I. 

5  Mr.  J.  H.  Hanford  ("The  Pastoral  Elegy  and  Milton's 
Lycidas" — Mod.  Lang.  Assn.  of  Am.,  Sept.,  1910)  shows 
that  Milton  probably  imitated  this  passage  in  the  lines 
where  the  singing  shepherd  bids  the  spirit  of  Lycidas 
"  look  homeward "  and  later  when  he  invokes  Lycidas  as 
"  Genius  of  the  shore." 


SANNAZARO   AND   HIS   IMITATORS  49 

Again,  the  shepherds  build  altars  to  Daphnis  and 
Apollo,  but  the  fishers  raise  them  to  Phyllis  and 
the  sea-gods,  while  the  bucolic  offerings — cups  of 
milk  with  bowls  of  oil,  are  replaced  in  Sanna- 
zaro's  poem  by  "  garlands  of  oysters  "  with  shaggy 
"sea-calves."  Lastly,  Virgil's  Menalcas  praises 
his  friend's  song  as  "  sweet  as  rest  beneath  the 
shadow  of  trees,"  or  as  "quenching  one's  thirst 
at  a  crystal  brook,"  whereas  the  fisher  compli- 
ments the  strains  of  Lycidas  as  "  sweeter  than 
the  lamentations  of  halcyon,  or  than  the  com- 
plaints of  swans,  heard  in  the  grass  beside  sweet 
streams." 

In  spite  of  the  closeness  of  this  parallel,  San- 
nazaro  rejects  in  some  details  the  example  of 
Virgil  to  follow  that  set  in  the  idyll  of  Theocritus 
which  the  Roman  was  himself  imitating.6  For 
instance,  the  Greek  shepherd  is  induced  to  sing 
by  the  offer  of  a  carved  ivy  bowl,  and  of  the  privi- 
lege of  milking  a  goat,  things  which  he  claims 
with  childish  eagerness  the  moment  his  song  is 
finished.  The  fisher,  like  his  Theocritean  proto- 
type, offers  his  comrade  gifts,  as  an  inducement 
to  sing : 

"  Moss  of  the  dark  blue  sea,  purple-fish  sought 
through  the  deep,  with  coral  torn  from  the  very 
lowest  rocks." 

One  Greek  swain  and  one  fisherman  render  their 
respective  laments  entire,  while  in  Virgil  both 
characters  render  different  parts  of  the  complaint, 
after  which  they  perfunctorily  exchange  a  pipe 

"Id.  i. 
5 


50  IDYLLS   OF    FISHERMEN 

for  a  sheep-hook.  The  Greek  goatherd's  enthu- 
siastic wish : 

"  Filled  may  thy  fair  mouth  be  with  honey, 
Thyrsis,  and  filled  with  the  honey-comb;  and  the 
sweet  dried  fig  mayst  thou  eat  of  Aegilus  "- 

is  adapted  to  piscatory  conventions  in  Sannazaro's : 

"  Mayst  thou  ever  have  from  the  Megarian  reefs 
nearby,  an  abundant  supply  of  shellfish,  and  may 
Mergellina  bear  thee  oysters,  and  the  rocky  cliffs, 
sea-urchins." 

Other  touches,  such  as  fishing  in  a  skiff  by  night, 
"  watching  for  the  tunny  shoals,"  and  mention  of 
a  smoky  cabin,  weels,  nets,  bait,  hooks  and  fishing 
baskets  plaited  of  withes,  are  probably  borrowed 
from  the  Greek  poet. 

All  the  other  fisher  idylls  of  Sannazaro  furnish 
similar  examples  of  imitation.  Virgil's  shep- 
herd boasts  to  Alexis7  of  his  thousand  lambs, 
grazing  on  Sicilian  pastures,  which  finds  an  echo 
in  a  fisherman's  boast  of  a  thousand  oysters  on 
the  hanging  cliffs  of  Misenum.8  The  same  rustic 
vaunts  his  oaten  pipe  given  him  by  Damoetas,  as 
to  his  successor  in  pastoral  song,  which  the  fisher 
matches  with  the  boast  of  wool,  dyed  with  the 
juice  of  the  purple-fish,  and  softer  than  sea- 
foam — "this  the  shepherd  Melisaeus  himself 
once  gave  me,  when  by  chance  the  old  man  from 
a  rock  heard  me  singing,  and  he  said :  Boy,  this 
is  the  reward  for  your  lay,  since  you  are  the  very 
first  to  sing  upon  the  seashore." 

7  EC.  2. 

8  P.  EC.  2. 


SANNAZARO   AND   HIS   IMITATORS  51 

As  Melisaeus  is  a  poetical  name  for  his  master 
Pontano,  Sannazaro  here  turns  the  Virgilian  con- 
vention into  a  compliment  to  himself  for  the  in- 
vention of  fisher  eclogues.  Where  almost  every 
line  in  the  piscatories  is  an  imitation,  it  would  be 
tedious  to  cite  more  parallels.  Even  the  lists  of 
trees  and  shrubs  in  Virgil  become  lists  of  fish  in 
Sannazaro,  and  the  pastoral  refrain — "  Begin  with 
me,  my  pipe,  the  pastoral  strain"  finds  an  awk- 
ward equivalent  in  Sannazaro's  "  Thrust  thy  dark 
green  face  forth  from  the  wave,  O  Triton."9 

Like  most  other  Latin  eclogues  of  the  renais- 
sance, these  fisher  pieces  form  an  elaborate  alle- 
gory, notable  for  obscure  and  puzzling  allusions. 
Nevertheless  it  is  not  difficult  to  recognize  some 
of  the  persons  and  events  thus  veiled  from  the 
casual  reader.  As  has  been  stated,  the  first  eclogue, 
a  lament  by  the  fisher  Lycidas  for  the  death  of 
the  fisher  maiden  Phyllis  is  the  marine  equivalent 
of  Virgil's  lament  for  the  death  of  the  mythical 
Daphnis.  At  the  same  time  this  fisher  poem 
bears  a  strong  resemblance  to  the  last  eclogue  in 
the  Arcadia,  and  the  Phyllis  of  both  poems  is 
undoubtedly  the  fair  Carmosina.  This  is  asserted 
by  a  very  early  biographer,10  and  accounts  for 
the  marked  pathos  characterizing  the  fisherman's 
song.  Lycidas  is  Sannazaro,  and  Mycon,  his 
sympathizing  comrade,  Basilius  Zanchius.11  Cer- 

9  EC.  5. 

10  Vita  by  Vulpius,  pp.  34,  early  eds. 

11  Cf .   this  epigram   for   Sannazaro's  tomb  by   Zanchius : 
"  These  weels,  these  fishing  lines,  oh   Syncerus,  the  fisher 
Mycon    dedicated    to    thy    tomb    with    his    feeble    art."     A 
partial!  key  to  the  eclogues  is  to  be  found  in  the  epigrams 
and    elegies    by    Sannazaro,    and   by   others   written    about 
him. 


52  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

tain  rivals  of  the  poet's  are  alluded  to  in  Mycon's 
speech  of  comfort: 

"  O  Lycidas,  Lycidas ;  dost  them  not  deem  that 
happened  more  fortunately  for  her  than  if  she  had 
entered  the  smoky  cave  of  Lycota,  or  had  entered 
the  hut  of  the  hairy  Amyntas?  And  now,  were  she 
alive,  she  would  be  seeking  vile  bait  for  her  hook, 
or  would  be  mending  torn  fishing  weels  with  pliant 
withes." 

Another  very  bitter  passage  tallies  exactly  with 
the  facts  known  of  this  affair.  The  poet  speaks, 
as  in  the  Arcadia,  of  the  very  early  age  at  which 
he  fell  in  love,  of  his  hope  of  marrying  Carmo- 
sina  and  of  spending  all  his  days  with  her,  and 
of  his  lasting  sadness.  Thus  the  poem  combines 
imitation  of  the  Virgilian  bucolic  with  occasional 
borrowings  from  Theocritus,  and  the  type  of 
fisher  eclogue  thus  contrived  veils  the  story  of 
the  author's  sorrows. 

These  three  elements  characterize  all  the  other 
eclogues.  The  complaint  of  the  fisher  Lycon  at 
the  indifference  of  Galatea  is  a  studied  effort  to 
render  by  marine  analogy  Virgil's  shepherd's 
complaint  at  the  cruelty  of  Alexis.  Owing  to  the 
fact  that  this  piece  was  considerably  altered  be- 
fore publication,  its  meaning  is  somewhat  ob- 
scure,12 but  Lycon  is  certainly  Sannazaro,  and  the 
nymph  is  probably  Carmosina.  "  Beautiful  Hyale," 
who  "  praises  "  the  fisher's  song — "  Hyale  who  is 
descended  from  distinguished  Spanish  ancestors 

u  Julius  Scaliger  had  an  early  copy  in  which  were  many 
things  later  changed  by  Sannazaro.  These  were  strictures 
on  Pope  Clement  for  slowness  in  rewarding  the  poet. 
(Vulpius,  Vita,  pp.  45.) 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  53 

and  whom  so  many  lands  and  shores  obey,"  is 
Joan  of  Aragon,  wife  to  Ferdinand,  King  of 
Naples  and  son  of  Alfonsus.13  The  passage  re- 
calls Sannazaro's  place  at  the  Neapolitan  court, 
and  "  the  haughty  Amaryllis,"  the  "  dark  Menal- 
cas,"  and  the  nymphs  who  favored  the  poet — 
"Praxinoe,"  the  "daughter  of  Polybata,"  and 
the  "  wife  of  rich  Amyntas  "  are  to  be  considered 
appellations  meant  to  disguise  noble  persons 
of  his  acquaintance.  Melisaeus,  as  we  have  seen, 
is  Pontano,  who  finds  Sannazaro  on  the  shore 
near  the  city  singing  the  praises  of  Mergellina, 
and  Lyda,  who  is  "  spiteful  "  because  the  garlands 
she  sent  Sannazaro  had  no  effect  on  his  heart,  is 
a  pretty  girl  to  whom  he  paid  poetical  compli- 
ments.14 

All  the  allusions  to  his  life  in  these  first  eclogues 
indicate  that  they  were  composed  before  Sanna- 
zaro went  into  exile,  but  the  remaining  pieces 
were  probably  written  at  later  periods.  This  is 
shown  by  various  passages.  The  fisher  Chromis, 
in  the  third  pastoral,  a  song  contest,  speaks  about 
the  wanderings  of  Sannazaro's  exiled  prince  with 
his  followers,  and  lolas  relates  the  return  of 
Lycabas  (the  poet)  to  the  Lucrine  Lake,  with 
his  account  of  the  barbarous  peoples  in  other 
lands.  As  the  poem  was  among  those  brought 
back  to  Naples  by  Sannazaro  in  1503,  the  lines  on 
his  return  are  either  an  anticipation,  or  a  later 
interpolation. 

The  singing  match  itself  is  modeled  song  for 
song  on  that  in  Virgil's  seventh  bucolic,  but  the 

13  Ed.  1782,  pp.  201. 

14  See  bk.   I.,   epigram  45. 


54  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

introduction  and  conclusion  are  notable  for  un- 
usually direct  borrowings  from  Theocritus.  The 
first  lines  include  an  imitation  of  the  Greek  fisher 
idyll : 

"CELADON.  Tell  me  (for  at  Baulae,  if  Aegon  re- 
ported the  truth,  storms,  O  Mopsus,  held  you  dur- 
ing twelve  days)  what  thou,  what  Chromis  and 
what  thy  friend  Tolas  played  in  deserted  caverns 
while  the  south  wind  swept  the  sea,  and  the  waves 
moaned  outside? 

MOPSUS.  What  could  our  Muses  accomplish  in 
such  enforced  idleness,  O  Celadon  ?  Then  we  could 
not  with  impunity  stalk  shellfish  on  the15  rocks  nor 
the  light-footed  paguri.  The  rocks  now  propped 
up  our  frail  skiff  on  dry  land,  and  wide-meshed 
seines  hung  on  the  long  oars.  Beside  us  were 
strewn  the  instruments  of  our  craft,  the  light  fish- 
ing creels,  the  rods  of  reed,  the  hooks,  and  lobster- 
pots  woven  of  rushes." 

Here  we  find  almost  word  for  word  the  list  of 
implements  given  in  the  picture  of  the  cabin  of 
the  Greek  fisher  Asphalion  and  his  friend.  One 
of  the  prizes,  too,  is  taken  from  Theocritus : 

"  So  far,  O  Celadon,  under  the  resounding  cliff 
I  remember  they  contended  in  varied  song,  laughing 
at  the  rough  murmurs  of  the  windy  deep.  And 
then,  too,  they  carried  off  praise  with  prizes  worthy 
their  singing,  ones  that  Triton  could  not  scorn. 
One  of  them  gained  a  spiral  shell  that  I,  naked, 
captured  under  the  swirling  tide  of  Circejo,  a  shell 
stained  with  purple:  the  other  received  curving 
branches  of  knotty  coral." 

16  The  stalking  of  shellfish  is  taken  from  Th.  id.  9. 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  55 

The  setting  of  this  pastoral  is  almost  identical 
with  that  of  the  storm-bound  fishers  whom  Alci- 
phron  pictures,  but  the  influence  of  Theocritus  is 
traceable  in  much  of  the  imagery,  the  cave,  rocks, 
"  twigs  and  rushes  best  for  plaiting  weels,"  "  light 
hooks,"  nets,  etc.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  realism  and  local  color  distinguishing  this 
poem  from  the  rest  are  due  to  a  deliberate  at- 
tempt to  harmonize  the  realism  of  the  Greek 
fisher  idyll  with  the  construction  of  the  Virgilian 
song  contest.  It  is  a  sort  of  kindly  correction  of 
Theocritus,  showing  how  that  kind  of  thing  ought 
to  have  been  done. 

Many  of  the  pictures  of  fisher  life  in  these 
pieces  may  be  traced  to  a  source  in  Theocritus, 
but  one  of  the  pastorals,  "  Proteus,"  illustrates 
the  fact  that  Sannazaro  considered  poetry  dealing 
specifically  with  the  gods  of  fishers  as  "  pisca- 
tory," and  that  for  such  he  found  ample  prece- 
dent in  Virgil.  The  fourth  georgic,  for  instance, 
includes  a  passage  really  equivalent  to  a  marine 
eclogue,  even  beginning  with  description  appro- 
priate for  the  introduction  to  such  an  interlude: 

"  T'was  noon ;  the  sultry  Dog-star  from  the  sky 
Scorch'd  Indian  swains ;  the  rivel'd  grass  was  dry : 
The  sun  with  flaming  arrows  pierced  the  flood, 
And,  darting  to  the  bottom,  bak'd  the  mud, 
When  weary  Proteus,  from  the  briny  waves, 
Retir'd  for  shelter  to  his  wonted  caves. 
His  finny  flock  about  their  shepherd  play, 
And,  rolling  round  him,  spirt  the  bitter  sea. 
Unwieldily  they  wallow  first  in  ooze, 
Then  in  the  shady  covert  seek  repose. 
Himself,  their  herdsman,  on  the  middle  mount, 


5  IDYLLS   OF    FISHERMEN 

Takes  of  his  mustered  flocks  a  just  account. 
So,  seated  on  a  rock,  a  shepherd's  groom 
Surveys  his  ev'ning  flock  returning  home, 
When  lowing  calves  and  bleating  lambs  from  far 
Provoke  the  prowling  wolf  to  nightly  war."16 

Aristaeus,  who  had  caused  the  death  of  Euridice, 
binds  Proteus  in  his  sleep,  in  order  to  force  him 
to  unfold  the  future.  The  god  changes  himself 
into  wild  beasts,  into  fire  and  into  water,  but  all 
is  in  vain,  and  at  length  he  resumes  his  proper 
shape,  and  with  green  and  flashing  eyes  demands 
the  cause  of  this  violence.  A  dialogue  ensues, 
and  Proteus  declares  that  the  fates  will  punish 
the  youth  for  his  wicked  attack  on  Eurydice. 
He  repeats  the  whole  story  of  the  affair,  ending 
with  the  death  of  Orpheus,  after  which  the  poet 
remarks : 

"  This  answer  Proteus  gave;  nor -more  he  said, 
But  in  the  billows  plung'd  his  hoary  head; 
And,  where  he  leap'd,  the  waves  in  circles  widely 
spread."17 

For  such  visualization  of  the  powers  of  ocean 
and  for  emphasis  on  marine  scenery  Sannazaro 
had  before  him  not  only  the  example  of  Virgil 
and  the  Greeks,  but  also  that  of  his  master  Pon- 
tano,  whose  works  he  edited  with  lavish  praise. 
Pontano  loved  to  picture  Galatea,  teazing  shaggy 
Polyphemus  from  the  waves,  or  green-haired  gods 
with  bands  of  nereids  and  tritons  in  full  chorus, 
and  his  poetry  teems  with  pictures  of  the  same 

14  G.  4.    Dryden,  615-630. 

17  765-767.  Cf.  "  Proteus  was  a  herdsman  and  of  seals 
though  he  was  a  god."  Theocritus,  27. 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  57 

sea  and  the  same  coasts  that  Sannazaro  made  the 
themes  of  his  song.  His  influence  on  the  pisca- 
tory eclogues  has  been  phrased  in  general  terms, 
but  the  intimate  connection  between  one  of  his 
poems  and  Sannazaro's  "  Proteus  "  has  not  been 
noticed.  Pontano's  eclogue  "  Lepidina  cuius  Pom- 
pae  Septem,"  the  first  combination  of  pastoral 
with  the  epithalamium,  presents  the  shepherd 
Macron,  who  sits  with  his  bride  Lepidina,  and 
chats  about  their  recent  courtship  in  that  very 
spot  near  the  shore.18  Before  them  pass  seven 
bands,  or  "  Pompae,"  with  song  and  dance.  First 
trip  shepherds  and  shepherdesses,  chanting  alter- 
nately, and  behind  them  nereids  and  throngs  of 
tritons.  Then  Triton  rises  from  the  billows  and 
sings  elaborate  praises  of  the  bride,  and  of  the 
coasts  near  Naples,  while  sirens  with  a  hundred 
nymphs  bear  golden  gifts,  and  three  hundred 
other  sea-gods  bring  more.  On  these  proces- 
sions the  couple  (Pontano  and  his  bride)  make 
enthusiastic  comment,  and  the  whole  poem  thus 
has  many  of  the  characteristics  of  the  later 
masques  of  sea-gods,  since  the  dancers  and  singers 
are  merely  noble  guests  at  Pontano's  villa  by 
the  sea. 

Sannazaro  declared  this  piece  "  equal  to  Virgil," 
and  he  probably  took  from  it  the  idea  of  making 
Proteus  predict  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation  in 
his  epic,  "  De  Partu  Virginis,"  in  which,  too, 
nereids  and  other  ocean  divinities  figure  with  sin- 
gular prominence.  A  more  obvious  relationship, 
however,  connects  Pontano's  idyll  with  his  dis- 

18  Ecloga — "  Lepidin-us   Cuius   Pompae   Septem." 


5§  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

ciple's  "  Proteus,"  a  pastoral  dedicated  to  Ferdi- 
nand of  Aragon,  Duke  of  Calabria  and  son  of 
Frederick,  King  of  Naples,  with  whom  the  poet 
was  an  exile.  One  purpose  of  both  eclogues  is 
to  eulogize  Italy,  the  Bay  of  Naples  and  the  coast, 
in  both  the  deities  and  general  marine  convention 
are  the  same,  and  in  both  the  panegyric  is  sung 
by  a  sea-god.  As  usual,  nevertheless,  Sannazaro 
is  following  a  more  definite  model  in  Virgil,  here 
the  fourth  pastoral,  the  famous  "  Pollio,"  once 
regarded  as  a  messianic  prophecy.  Virgil's  pre- 
diction of  a  return  of  the  Golden  Age  with  peace 
and  happiness  for  Italy,  after  the  birth  of  a  won- 
derful boy,  with  its  mood  of  patriotism,  is  closely 
paralleled  by  the  humanist,  who  extols  the  youth- 
ful prince,  and  prohesies  his  safe  return,  with 
power  over  all  the  land,  in  an  era  of  peace  and 
glory  for  Italy.  Incidentally  he  repeats  his  claim 
to  the  invention  of  fisher  poetry,  in  these  lines 
addressed  to  his  lord : 

"  Now  do  not  despise  the  Muse  of  the  Seashore ; 
whom  for  thee,  after  her  sojourn  in  forests  or  in 
bristling  groves  of  Bacchus,  I  was  the  first  to  lead 
down  to  the  salt  sea  waves,  if  that  is  anything  to 
boast,  daring  in  my  untried  fishing  skiff  to  attempt 
perils  yet  untried." 

The  second  part  of  the  eclogue  is  a  variant  on 
the  song  of  Silenus  in  Virgil's  sixth  pastoral, 
which  relates  how  two  youths  seized  the  god  and 
forced  him  to  sing  them  a  mythological  account 
of  the  universe,  with  special  emphasis  on  Italian 
legends.  Sannazaro's  Proteus,  amid  a  crowd  of 
tritons,  chants  by  night  a  more  elaborate  song, 


SANNAZARO  AND    HIS   IMITATORS  59 

mentioning  many  events  or  places  made  famous 
by  the  Aeneid — Italian  and  Sicilian  shores,  the 
Cumaean  sibyll,  the  caverns  through  which 
Aeneas  passed  to  the  under-world,  with  an  enu- 
meration of  the  Roman  kings  and  wars.  Finally, 
he  eulogizes  Virgil  and  Pontano,  and  pities  the 
sad  fate  of  Sannazaro  himself,  still  in  exile  with 
his  prince.  Thus  the  sea-god's  song  combines 
the  themes  of  two  of  Virgil's  eclogues,  and 
Virgil's  chief  contribution  to  the  pastoral,  the 
panegyric,  finds  a  marine  equivalent  in  the  work 
of  his  humanist  disciple. 

The  last  fisher  pastoral,  "  Herpylis  Pharma- 
ceutria,"  was  dedicated  to  Cassandra  Marchesia, 
Sannazaro's  platonic  love,  and  begins  with  her 
praises  and  with  the  statement  that  the  piece  was 
undertaken  at  her  command.19  This  passage  is 
an  imitation  of  the  introductory  eulogy  of  Pollio 
in  Virgil's  "  Pharmaceutria,"  and  in  construction 
the  humanist  follows  Virgil  in  a  general  way 
throughout.  Yet  though  modeled  in  form  and 
externals  on  the  Latin  bucolic,  Sannazaro's  poem, 
unlike  all  his  others,  is  clearly  the  piscatory  adap- 
tation of  an  idyll  of  Theocritus — forsaken  Si- 
maetha's  wild  incantations  performed  to  win  back 
her  lover,20  itself  the  inspiration  of  Virgil's  love- 
charm.  Apparently  in  this  single  case  Sanna- 
zaro appreciated  the  superior  fire  and  passion  in 
the  Greek,  and  realized  that  the  Latin  imitation 
was  undertaken  simply  as  a  poetical  exercise. 

Unlike  Virgil,  Sannazaro  follows  the  example 

19  If  the  statement  is  true  the  piece  may  have  been  done 
after  1503. 

20  Idyll   2. 


60  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

of  Theocritus  in  picturing  the  condition  of  the 
afflicted  girl  as  she  comes  down  to  the  sea  by 
night.  A  few  passages  will  show  the  general 
nature  of  the  imitations.  The  Greek  damsel  ex- 
claims : 

"  I  against  Delphis  am  burning  this  laurel ;  and 
even  as  it  crackles  loudly  when  it  has  caught  the 
flame,  and  suddenly  is  burned  up,  and  we  see  not 
even  the  dust  thereof,  lo,  even  thus  may  the  flesh 
of  Delphis  waste  in  the  burning !  " 

The  fisher  girl  shouts : 

"  Pluck  white  worm-wood  from  the  field  hardby. 
By  these  magic  rites  shall  I  strive  to  burn  his  very 
flesh — who  has  left  me  wretched,  and  destroyed  my 
peace  of  mind  .  .  .  this  dry  seaweed  first,  scourings 
of  the  swelling  ocean,  is  strewn  and  is  suddenly 
burned  up:  lo,  even  thus,  Maeon,  mayst  thou  be 
consumed  even  to  the  marrow." 

The  Greek — "  Scatter  the  grain,  and  cry  the 
while,  'Tis  the  bones  of  Delphis  I  am  scattering," 
has  its  marine  equivalent  in  the  Latin : 

"Thrice,  Clearista,  thrice  burn  together  sea-moss 
with  this  crab  without  a  pincer,  and  cry  the  while — 
Tis  the  entrails  of  Maeon  I  am  burning." 

Sannazaro  does  not  mention  the  burying  of  the 
lover's  raiment,  as  does  Virgil,  but  instead  at- 
tempts a  fisher  adaptation  of  Theocritus'  use  of 
the  magic  wheel  to  make  the  guilty  man  "turn 
and  turn "  about  Simaetha's  door.  The  fisher 
sorceress  calls  on  the  "  fierce  trigon  "  fish  to  sting 
Maeon  to  the  heart,  and  bids  another  sea  creature 


SANNAZARO   AND   HIS   IMITATORS  6 1 

which  can  stop  sailing  ships,  to  cramp  his  cruel 
limbs.  Again,  the  Greek  maiden's  "  Lo,  I  will 
crush  an  eft,  and  a  venomous  draught  tomorrow 
I  will  bring  thee ! "  becomes  in  Sannazaro's  pas- 
toral, "  Crush  together  the  liver  and  spume  of  a 
black  torpedoe-fish,  and  this  venomous  draught 
tomorrow  I  will  send  him.  May  he  drink  it,  and 
may  his  pallid  limbs  grow  numb ! " 

The  meaning  of  the  piece  is  a  little  obscure,  but 
the  fisher  seems  to  be  Sannazaro.  He  tells  how 
he  and  "  Galatea  "  once  sat  below  a  cliff  looking 
out  over  the  Bay  of  Naples,  and  of  how  he  after- 
wards left  Italy  because  she  did  not  love  him — "  I 
myself  on  account  of  thee  forsook  my  comrades 
and  my  fishing  skiff.  .  .  ."  These  lines  and 
others  descriptive  of  his  later  exile  in  France 
have  some  of  the  pathos  of  the  earlier  elegy,  but 
the  conceits  in  the  poem  are  very  extravagant. 
Speaking  of  a  poplar  tree  near  which  he  first  saw 
Galatea  he  declares : 

"  I  embrace  this  again  and  again,  and  imprint  my 
kisses  on  the  bark.  Often  I  search  for  thy  very 
foot-prints — and  if  I  find  any,  I  adorn  them  with 
flowers." 

Besides  this  he  boasts  that  he  would  not  hesitate 
to  swim  a  race  against  tunnies  or  dolphins,  "  with 
Galatea  as  judge."  Thus  a  fantastic  love  com- 
plaint ends  an  eclogue  which  had  begun  with  imi- 
tation of  the  incantations  described  by  Theocritus. 
It  is  known  that  Sannazaro  completed  ten 
fisher  idylls,  presumably  imitating  all  of  Virgil's, 
but  that  after  his  return  from  France  only  the 
five  already  mentioned,  with  part  of  a  sixth,  re- 


62  IDYLLS   OF    FISHERMEN 

mained  in  his  writing-case,  the  rest  having  been 
lost  or  stolen  through  the  carelessness  of  his 
friends.21  The  fragment  pictures  two  rival  bands 
of  fishers  meeting  at  the  temple  of  Venus  on  the 
Lucrine  Lake,  where  their  champions,  "  both 
skillful  sailors  in  the  narrow  seas,  and  both  cun- 
ning fishermen,  one  in  casting  hooks,  but  the 
other  in  spreading  nets  in  the  ocean,22  are  to  hold 
a  trial  of  skill  in  song.  Of  the  actual  match  only 
a  part  remains,  in  which  Zephyraeus  calls  on  the 
muses  of  fishers,  complains  of  the  cruelty  of 
Phoebe  and  Chloris,  and  then  turns  to  magic 
charms  for  relief : 

"  Go,  Goddesses  of  the  sea,  summon  now  for  my 
madness  other  juices,  other  herbs  of  Melampos  .  .  . 
I  have  not  shunned  magic  verses,  the  names  of 
things  unknown,  and  the  unlike  gods,  Erebus  and 
Chaos.  Nay  more,  I  have  learned  to  whirl  the 
mystic  wheel  with  thread,  by  which  I  have  drawn 
my  share  of  sea-urchins  from  the  shore,  moss  from 
the  reefs,  water  from  the  waves." 

At  this  point  the  eclogue  stops,  but  even  the  rem- 
nant has  interest  as  part  of  an  incantation  per- 
formed by  a  man  who  has  been  snubbed  by  two 
girls,  the  refrain  in  the  poem : 

"  Give  forth  with  me,  at  length  thy  song,  my 
hollow  shell,"  is  the  logical  piscatory  adaptation 
of  the  analogous  refrain  addressed  to  the  reed 
pipe  in  earlier  pastoral. 

Sufficient  has  been  said  about  these  fisher 
poems  to  show  that  they  may  justly  be  character- 

21  Ace.  Paulus  Manutius  in  Vulpius,  Vita,  pp.  28. 
33  Cf.   Virgil,    7,   herdsman   and   shepherd. 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  63 

ized  as  Virgilian  pastorals23  in  form,  but  pastorals 
given  a  marine  coloring.  This  becomes  obvious 
the  moment  one  places  a  few  lines  of  Sannazaro's 
hexameter  beside  the  corresponding  lines  in  his 
model.  In  this  book  there  is  space  only  to  men- 
tion the  more  striking  resemblances,  but  a  com- 
parison of  the  original  texts  reveals  metrical  and 
verbal  imitations  which  show  that  the  humanist 
was  very  successful  in  catching  the  manner  of 
his  model. 

Nevertheless  some  differences  are  marked. 
With  all  his  skill  as  a  Latinist,  Sannazaro  could 
not  avoid  a  more  ornate,  elaborate  style  of  com- 
position than  that  which  Virgil  perfected.  Occa- 
sional extravagant  conceits,  and  the  undertone  of 
disappointed  love  suggest  the  legacy  of  Petrarch, 
while  bitter  reflections  on  exile,  with  eulogy  of 
the  shores  near  the  poet's  home,  recall  a  trait 
of  Dante's. 

The  chief  defect  that  has  been  pointed  out  in 
these  pastorals  lies  in  the  characterization  of  the 
fishermen,  who  have  been  termed  merely  shep- 
herds in  disguise.  That  there  should  be  some 
ground  for  such  a  criticism  is  the  inevitable  result 
of  Sannazaro's  method.  He  chose  to  make  his 
characters  sing  just  the  types  of  song  which  he 
found  in  Virgil,  and  to  borrow  many  touches  de- 
scriptive of  the  activities  of  fishermen  from  Theo- 
critus. This  was  only  natural  in  so  enthusiastic 
a  humanist,  but  though  he  culled  from  the  classics 
the  specific  terms  in  which  to  frame  his  marine 
sketches,  it  is  evident  that  he  selected  what  fitted 

23  Aside  from  the  imitation   of  Th, 


64  IDYLLS   OF    FISHERMEN 

with  a  reasonable  degree  of  accuracy  the  things 
he  could  see  from  his  Villa  Mergellina  at  any 
time.  Fishers  hauling  seines  by  torch-light,  trapped 
on  a  barren  coast  by  tempests,  or  gathering  moss, 
oysters  and  sea-urchins  must  have  been  common- 
place sights  to  the  Neapolitan  poet.  Even  in  the 
matter  of  making  his  men  sing  he  had  precedent 
near  at  hand  in  the  native  madrigals  of  the  coast. 
Moreover,  his  characters  keep  up  a  show  of  fish- 
ing at  least  as  convincing  as  that  which  contem- 
porary shepherds  do  of  tending  sheep,  so  that  to 
criticize  their  artificiality  is  to  ignore  the  spirit 
of  renaissance  pastoral,  in  which  this  quality  is 
almost  universal. 

Although  Sannazaro's  claim  that  he  was  the 
first  to  write  fisher  poems  can  not  have  been  in- 
genuous, it  was  echoed  by  the  most  learned  schol- 
ars of  the  day,  and  it  would  require  many  pages 
to  print  the  eulogies  in  prose  or  verse  which 
greeted  the  "  new  style."  If  the  humanists  real- 
ized the  poet's  indebtedness  to  Theocritus  they 
did  not  mention  it,  and  even  such  men  as  Erasmus, 
who  regretted  the  liberties  which  Sannazaro  had 
taken  with  the  pastoral,  admired  the  classic  cor- 
rectness of  his  Latin.  Ariosto24  declared  the 
eclogues  a  new  literary  species,  and  it  is  note- 
worthy that  a  considerable  number  of  panegyrics 
took  the  form  of  fisher  epigrams.  All  this  admi- 
ration is  easy  to  understand,  because  it  was  mainly 
due  to  the  fact  that  Sannazaro  had  succeeded  in 
composing  very  close  imitations  of  Virgil,  the 
idol  of  humanism.  At  the  same  time  he  was 

M  Orland.  Fur.  Cant.,  46,  st.  1 7. 


SANNAZARO   AND   HIS   IMITATORS  65 

given  credit  for  originality  in  making  fishers  his 
characters,  and  the  beautiful  coast  of  Italy  the 
scene  for  their  activities. 

With  the  publication  at  Naples  of  these  eclogues 
in  1526  the  "  new  style  "  became  a  recognized  lit- 
erary type.  By  the  close  of  the  century  ten  edi- 
tions of  Sannazaro's  pieces  had  been  issued  and 
numerous  imitations  had  appeared,  at  first  in 
Latin,  then  in  the  vernacular,  then  in  special  dia- 
lects. The  convention  spread  also  to  other  forms 
of  literature,  such  as  the  romance,  the  drama, 
and  the  sonnet,  and  to  other  European  countries, 
notably  Spain,  France,  and  England.  The  English 
branch  grew  from  direct  imitation  of  Sannazaro, 
and  not  from  the  Italian  poems,  so  that  only  a 
brief  account  of  the  continental  pastoral  need  be 
given  here. 

Turning  first  to  imitations  in  the  learned  tongue, 
we  find  that  these  began  with  an  allegorical  ec- 
logue25 by  Sannazaro's  friend  Johannes  (Gio- 
vanni) Cotta  of  Verona,  in  which  a  victory  over 
the  French  in  1503  was  celebrated.  The  patriotic 
and  eulogistic  cast  of  this  poem  mark  it  as  akin 
to  Sannazaro's  panegyric,26  but  the  fact  that  the 
author  introduces  two  shepherds  conversing  with 
a  single  fisher  suggests  that  Cotta  aimed  to  com- 
bine the  bucolic  motive  with  the  piscatory.  This 
tendency  to  effect  a  combination  of  the  old  style 
with  the  new  appears  also  here  and  there  among 
Latin  poems  that  were  written  after  the  publica- 
tion of  Sannazaro's  eclogues  gave  fisher  pastoral 

23  Cotta  died  1610,  so  the  eclogue  was  composed  before 
that  date. 
29  EC.  4. 
6 


66  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

a  definite  standing.  A  piece  by  M.  Hieronymus 
Vida,  for  example,  pictures  a  shepherd  near  the 
sea  singing  a  song  about  Arion's  dolphin  ride, 
Proteus  pasturing  his  seals,  Glaucus,  Amphitrite, 
Galatea  and  other  sea  divinities.  This  sort  of 
compromise  was  aimed,27  apparently,  to  show 
that  Sannazaro's  marine  imagery  was  not  incon- 
sistent with  the  older  form  of  pastoral  verse. 
These  rustics  were  evidently  those : 

"...  whose  precious  charge 

Nibbled  their  fill  at  ocean's  very  marge, 

Whose  mellow  reeds  are  touched  with  sounds  forlorn 

By  the  dim  echoes  of  old  Triton's  horn." 

Such  pieces  embodied  a  mild  correction  of  San- 
nazaro,  reminding  one  of  the  traditional  mixture 
of  characters  in  classic  pastoral,  rather  than  being 
unconditional  endorsement  of  the  "  new  style." 

Fisher  eclogues,  however,  became  more  and 
more  common,  and  after  a  time  Casal  Monfer- 
rato  established  an  "  Academy  of  Argonauts,"  in 
emulation  of  the  "pastoral  academy,"  and  the 
members  wrote  of  the  sea,  just  as  their  rivals  did 
of  the  fields.  In  addition  to  fisher  eclogues, 
which  by  the  middle  of  the  century  had  attained 
a  marked  vogue,  these  poets  tried  variants,  among 
them  "  nautical  eclogues,"  in  which  the  activities 
traditional  for  the  pastoral  were  transferred  to 
the  decks  of  ships,  where  sailors  wailed  love  com- 
plaints, held  song  contests,  or  performed  incanta- 
tions by  the  light  of  the  moon.28  Other  poets  of 

27  Another    piece    of    the    sort    is    by    Johannes    Baptista 
Amaltheus. 

28  Ferrante  Bagno,  ec.  2. 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  67 

the  Academy  devoted  themselves  to  "  dialogues 
on  nautical  art/'29  and  to  longer  didactic  pieces 
about  navigation  termed  "  nautica."  In  most  of 
these  eclogues  the  conventions  are  very  much  the 
same  as  in  Sannazaro's  pastorals,  and  the  distinc- 
tion between  strictly  "  nautical  "  and  "  piscatory  " 
idylls  is  rendered  a  little  hazy  by  the  fact  that 
even  on  vessels  fishers  are  sometimes  the  singers. 
Of  the  more  direct  imitations  of  Sannazaro 
practically  all  are  allegories,  and  a  large  number 
consist  of  panegyrics  and  elegies.  Some  eulogize 
famous  men,30  or  Venice  and  the  adjacent  coasts,31 
and  it  is  probable  that  the  church  regarded  the 
new  pastorals  with  favor,  partly  because  Sanna- 
zaro and  his  followers  carefully  avoided  stric- 
tures on  religious  abuses  of  the  sort  emphasized 
by  Mantuan,  and  partly  because  fishing  had  always 
been  held  a  particularly  honorable  craft  because 
of  those  whom  Christ  once  made  "  fishers  of 
men."  At  any  rate,  a  great  many32  fisher  ec- 
logues were  written  by  churchmen,  dedicated  to 
the  Pope,  or  devoted  to  lavish  praise  of  the 
church,  the  Pope  and  the  prelacy  in  general. 
These  pieces  bear  a  dreary  family  resemblance, 
and  when  the  vernacular  poems  grew  popular 
they  gradually  became  less  common.  The  most 
successful  of  all  these  Latin  works,  thirteen 
fisher  eclogues  by  the  Jesuit  Nicolaus  Gianneta- 
sius  (Parthenius)  were  published  at  Venice  in 

29  G.  I.  Bottazo,  1547,  and  G.  Antonio  Taigeto. 
80  E.  Carrara,  Poesia  Pastorale,  fasc.  40. 

31  G.     M.    Verdizotti,     Rome,     1566.     Lorenzo    Gambara, 
Rome  c.   1561.     Goina,  c.   1550. 

32  Thus,  like  the  contemporaneous  bucolic,  the  piscatory 
exemplifies    the    combination    of    the    classic    forms    with 
allegory   concerned  with   Christianity. 


68  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

1685,  one  hundred  years  after  the  humanistic 
variety  had  ceased  to  be  of  common  production.33 
They  are  the  closest  of  all  imitations  of  Sanna- 
zaro,  Virgil,  and  Theocritus,  in  some  places  being 
mere  centos  of  translated  passages.  He  describes 
an  ivy  bowl,  for  instance,  on  which  is  carved  an 
ancient  fisherman  with  a  net,  and  the  lines  giving 
the  picture  are  taken  almost  word  for  word  from 
Theocritus.34  Again,  his  lament  of  Mopsus  for 
the  death  of  Thyrsis  is  copied  deliberately  from 
Sannazaro's  "  Phyllis,"  even  to  the  deification  of 
the  departed.  The  persistence  of  the  recognized 
characteristics  of  the  Sannazarian  form  is  well 
illustrated  by  these  poems,  and  the  fact  that  such 
work  was  still  enjoyed  by  learned  readers  is  indi- 
cated by  the  numerous  editions  through  which 
Parthenius'  pastorals  passed.  Evidently,  too,  they 
led  to  a  revival  of  interest  in  Sannazaro,  whose 
idylls  were  republished  in  i689,35  and  thereafter 
at  frequent  intervals  until  1823,  when  they  were 
translated  into  Italian  by  Biondi. 

ITALIAN  ECLOGUES 

The  introduction  of  fisher  eclogues  in  the  ver- 
nacular, like  the  other  steps  in  the  development 
of  the  species,  followed  after  an  interval  the 
composition  of  Italian  bucolics.  The  Marchioness 
of  Pescara  suggested38  to  Bernardo  Tasso  the 
idea  of  "doing  in  the  vulgar  tongue  what  old 

88  The  eclogues  of  Parthenius  were  pub.  in  1685,   1686, 
1689,  1692,  1696,  1710-14,  1722. 
84  Idyll  i. 

35  After  a  lapse  of  89  years. 
86  E.  Carrara),  pp.  393-4. 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  69 

Sannazar  had  done  in  Latin,"  and  he  accordingly 
inserted  in  book  two  of  his  "  Amori,"37  the  first 
Italian  imitation  of  Sannazaro  published.  In  this 
piece  Crocale,  a  nymph  of  royal  blood,  born  near 
the  sea,  bewails  the  death  of  her  fisher  husband, 
Davalo.  Her  lament  on  the  rocky  coast  and  many 
of  the  details,  such  as  invocation  of  the  nereids 
with  touches  of  marine  description,  recall  San- 
nazaro's  "  Phyllis,"  but  the  second  part  of  the 
poem  is  in  a  class  by  itself.  "  Beautiful  Galatea  " 
rises  from  the  waves,  embraces  Crocale  and  begs 
her  to  lay  aside  her  grief  and  marry  Nereus,  who 
wishes  to  make  her  queen  of  the  ocean  fields,  of 
the  green-haired  gods  and  the  scaly  herds.  As 
Crocale,  Davalo  and  Galatea  are  poetical  names 
for  real  persons,  the  idyll  is  as  much  a  cryptogram 
as  its  Sannazarian  model.  This  allusive  element 
is  less  noticeable  in  most  vernacular  pastorals, 
but  the  elaboration  initiated  by  Tasso's  experi- 
ment, which  is  much  longer  than  any  of  the  Latin 
eclogues,  continues  to  characterize  the  Italian 
fisher  poems. 

The  latter,  as  a  rule,  follow  more  closely  than 
Tasso  the  form  of  Sannazaro's  pieces,  and  like 
them  avoid  the  themes  of  religious  controversy 
or  political  satire.  Those  few  not  based  on  a 
definite  model  by  Sannazaro  render  in  marine 
imagery  pastorals  of  Virgil  of  which  no  Sanna- 
zarian imitation  is  extant,  or  else  attempt  a  real- 
istic treatment  suggestive  of  Theocritus.  The 
typical  meter  for  Italian  fisher  idylls,  as  for  con- 
temporary bucolics,  is  terza  rima. 

:7  Venice,  1534. 


7O  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

The  eclogues  by  the  Neapolitan  Bernardino 
Rota,  probably  composed  a  year  before  the  pub- 
lication of  Tasso's  marine,  though  not  printed 
till  much  later,38  are  said  to  be  the  first  pisca- 
tories  in  the  Etruscan  dialect,  and  are  declared  by 
Tiraboschi39  to  be  the  best  of  their  kind.  Like 
Crocale's  complaint  they  are  imitations  of  Sanna- 
zaro,  and  it  has  been  suggested40  that  Rota,  like 
Tasso,  undertook  their  composition  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  the  Marchioness  of  Pescara.  They  exem- 
plify better  than  Tasso's  poem  the  characteristics 
of  the  Italian  fisher  eclogue,  and  differ  little  in 
essentials  from  imitations  made  two  centuries 
later. 

In  renaissance  pastoral  fishermen  are  an  amor- 
ous lot,  and  Rota's  are  no  exception  to  the  rule, 
for  twelve  of  his  fourteen  marines  deal  with  love 
motives.  His  love-sick  fishers  wail  complaints 
along  barren  beaches,  or  hold  song  contests  be- 
fore judges,  or  prepare  incantations  to  win  back 
their  fickle  nymphs — all  much  as  in  Sannazaro. 
What  distinguishes  these  and  most  other  Italian 
pieces  of  the  sort  from  the  Latin  is  not  the  sub- 
ject matter  or  the  form,  but  rather  the  method  of 
presentation,  which  is  much  freer  and  more  fan- 
ciful than  in  the  humanistic  works.  When  fisher- 
men sing  the  charms  of  their  sweethearts  nereids 
chant  like  enthusiastic  praises  from  the  sea; 
Proteus  appears  driving  his  herds,  while  Tethys 
and  Arnphitrite  scatter  pearls  and  corals  on  the 
waters.  In  the  love  complaints  we  find  one 

88  Naples,  1560  and  1572. 

39Storia  Delai  Litterat.  Ital.   I,  ch.  30. 

40  E,  Carrara,  pp.   393-394- 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  7 1 

neglected  fisher  exulting  because  the  gods  have 
punished  his  nymph  by  turning  her  into  a  white 
stone;  another  finds  himself  mocked  by  an  echo 
lurking  among  the  rocks  along  shore;  another 
serenades  a  sleeping  girl,  and  still  another  is  loud 
in  his  abuse  of  his  would-be  mother-in-law. 
Every  where  we  find  a  singular  mixture  of  modern 
life  with  ancient  fable.  Rota  gives,  for  instance, 
a  realistic  description  of  two  weary  fishermen, 
but  before  he  has  done  with  them  they  find 
stretched  in  the  seaweed  at  high  water  mark,  a 
scaly  triton,  fast  asleep,  with  his  spiral  shell  lying 
at  his  side.  One  awkwardly  attempts  to  sound 
the  horn,  whereupon  the  owner  starts  up,  takes 
the  shell  and  plays  sweetly  for  them.  Such 
themes  contrast  sharply  with  that  of  a  single 
idyll  in  which  two  rude  fellows  chaff  each  other 
in  vigorous  fashion  until  interrupted  by  a  com- 
rade. This  is  imitated  from  the  rough  banter 
between  Menalcas  and  Damoetas  in  Virgil,41  and 
is  a  fairly  successful  attempt  to  employ  a  tradi- 
tional device  to  paint  a  coarse  picture  of  modern 
fishermen. 

Most  of  these  poems  are  only  variants  on  San- 
nazarian  models,  but  they  possess  a  freshness  and 
charm  superior  to  those  in  the  Latin.  This  is  due 
in  part  to  Rota's  exuberant  fancy,  but  more  to 
the  fact  that  his  descriptions  of  persons  and 
scenery  are  comparatively  original,  while  Sanna- 
zaro's  are  in  most  cases  carefully  studied  marine 
equivalents  for  corresponding  passages  in  Virgil. 
This  comparative  freedom  of  presentation  be- 

41  EC.  3. 


72  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

comes  a  permanent  feature  in  the  Italian  pisca- 
tories,  which  oddly  enough,  with  whimsical 
changeability,  continue  to  place  in  juxtaposition, 
vivid  if  conventional  imagery,  with  a  use  of 
pathetic  fallacy  far  more  extravagant  than  any- 
thing in  Sannazaro.  Thus  the  shores  and  seas 
are  real  enough,  yet  when  lovers  sing,  fishes  fre- 
quently pop  their  heads  from  the  waves,  listen- 
ing in  ecstacy  to  the  pleasing  sounds,  or  lose  their 
heads  and  swim  eagerly  ashore.  Rota  composed 
piscatory  poems  and  bucolics  side  by  side,  and  as 
the  new  style  spread,  most  sets  of  eclogues, 
whether  in  Latin  or  Italian,  included  a  few 
written  in  the  new  manner. 

In  contemporary  pastorals  of  shepherds,  as  a 
rule,  pathetic  fallacies  are  as  noticeable  as  in 
those  about  fishers,  and  the  oddities  of  the  new 
species  develop  in  emulation  of  and  parallel  to 
those  familiar  in  the  old.  Lists  of  flowers  are 
matched  by  lists  of  fish,  the  power  of  love  evi- 
denced by  examples  drawn  from  the  ways  of 
birds  and  animals  in  Tasso's  Amyntas  is  shown 
with  what  may  be  termed  marine  flourishes  by 
illustrations  drawn  from  the  lives  of  fishes  or  of 
seals  in  Ongaro's  Alceo.  This  is  the  Sanna- 
zarian  method.  His  Arcadia  gave  tremendous 
impetus  to  the  popularity  of  the  regular  pastoral 
and  his  piscatories  in  like  manner  led  the  way 
to  the  "  new  "  idea  in  pastorialism. 

Not  long  after  Rota  composed  his  eclogues  the 
fisher  motive  invaded  another  field  of  the  pas- 
toral. Sannazaro  was  responsible  for  the  intro- 
duction of  the  piscatory  convention,  and  as  his 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS    IMITATORS  73 

Arcadia  won  great  popularity,  it  was  inevitable 
that  some  zealous  imitator  should  write  a  romance 
of  the  seashore  where  fishermen  should  be  the 
characters.  This  is  exactly  what  happened,  and 
in  the  work  of  Matteo  Sammartino  we  find  rather 
an  ingenious  combination  of  the  new  manner  with 
the  old,  the  prose  and  interspersed  eclogues  deal- 
ing wholly  with  fishers  and  an  idealized  fisher 
life.42  In  similar  vein  Giulio  Cesare  Capaccio 
wrote  a  romance  of  which  the  prose  celebrates 
Sannazaro's  Villa  Mergellina  with  the  nearby 
coasts,  while  the  eclogues  are  vernacular  imita- 
tions of  Sannazaro's  Latin  pastorals.  Other  ma- 
rine Arcadias  followed,  and  the  species  lingered 
on  as  late  as  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.43 
With  the  exception  of  romances  most  of  the 
fisher  pastorals  thus  far  mentioned  were  pub- 
lished at  Naples.  From  that  city  the  idea  spread 
to  Venice,  where  was  published  about  1550  an 
anonymous  poem,  "  Pescatoria  Amorosa,"  a  sere- 
nade sung  by  fishermen,  and  notable  for  a  certain 
lyric  grace,44  though  soiled  by  a  vicious  double 
meaning.  The  same  year  the  Venetian  Andrea 
Calmo  published  his  "Rime  Pescatorie,"45  in 
which  the  classic  types  of  song  are  preserved  but 
an  effort  is  made  to  gain  realism  of  presentation 
by  reproducing  the  rude  diction  of  actual  Vene- 
tian fishermen,  an  attempt  almost  analogous  to 

42  Venice,   1540  and  1566. 

48  Parini  composed  one  some  time  before  1759.  It  has 
been  lost. 

**  See  W.  W.  Gregg,  pp.  3 ,  \. 

45 "  Le  Bizarre,  Faconde  et  Ingeniose  Rime  Pescatorie  " 
repub.  1557,  1576,  1582. 


74  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

that  made  by  Spenser  in  some  parts  of  the  Shep- 
herds Calendar.46  Of  all  the  piscatories  printed 
at  Venice,  however,  the  four  among  the  "  Egloghe 
Miste"  (1590)  by  Bernardino  Baldi,  Bishop  of 
Guastalla,  are  the  most  interesting,  on  account  of 
the  sly  humor  with  which  the  poet  evidently  re- 
garded the  occasional  extravagance  of  the  con- 
vention. 

This  mood  is  perhaps  most  pronounced  in  a 
complaint  by  a  wretched  fisher,  who  sits  shivering 
in  the  boughs  of  a  tree  before  the  cabin  where 
cruel  Tibrina  lies  sleeping  on  a  winter's  night. 
The  song  is  extremely  elaborate,  but  follows  the 
form  of  Sannazaro's  Galatea,  in  invocation,  at- 
tempts to  excite  jealousy,  offer  of  piscatory  gifts 
and  the  usual  threat  of  suicide.  The  classic 
touches  in  this  serenade  border  on  the  burlesque, 
the  lover  declaring  with  poor  old  Polyphemus : 

"  I  am  not  deformed  nor  ugly  if  the  tranquil  sea 
where  I  go  fishing  tells  the  truth.  If  my  chin  is 
bearded  and  my  eyebrows  are  shaggy — these  things 
ornament  men." 

Another  typical  illustration  of  Baldi's  manner  is 
the  fisher's  sobbing  reference  to  his  tender  recol- 
lections of  how  Tibrina  looked  in  swaddling 
clothes.  Equally  absurd  are  the  remarks  about 
the  power  of  love  among  the  fish  incidental  to  a 
confidential  chat  between  two  fishermen,  and  the 
detailed  advice  with  which  one  fellow  shows  the 
other  that  he  must  use  the  craft  of  the  angler  to 
catch  the  heart  of  his  indifferent  mistress. 

One  of   these    eclogues,    "Alceo,"   was   very 

46  Analogous  also  to  a  movement  in  contemporary 
bucolics. 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  75 

likely  composed  for  dramatic  rendering.47  A 
young  fisher,  Cebisto,  finds  old  Alceo  vainly  striv- 
ing to  row  ashore  against  wind  and  waves.  He 
yells  to  the  oarsman  to  cast  a  line  ashore,  but  it 
is  some  time  before  the  deaf  old  fellow  under- 
stands, and  is  hauled  to  safety.  It  is  pouring 
rain  and  the  two  carry  Alceo's  basket  of  fish  to 
the  shelter  of  a  cave.  There  Alceo  asks  whose 
name  he  sees  carved  on  the  rocks,  whereupon 
Cebisto  says  that  Tratilo  has  cut  the  name  of  his 
love  on  a  thousand  rocks — but  there  is  a  different 
name  on  every  one.  While  they  talk  an  eel  slips 
from  the  basket  and  for  some  time  they  struggle 
to  recapture  it,  which  one  of  them  succeeds  in 
doing  by  holding  dry  leaves  in  his  palms.  After 
this  episode  Cebisto  coaxes  Alceo  to  tell  what  he 
knows  about  fish,  and  the  garrulous  old  man, 
easily  flattered,  repeats  a  string  of  stories  con- 
cerning marvelous  sea-creatures.  He  goes  on 
and  on,  encouraged  by  his  auditor's  admiring 
comment,  but  at  length  says  he  could  keep  it  up 
a  whole  month,  but  must  go  to  the  city  to  change 
his  fish  for  gold.  The  form  of  this  piece,  with 
the  dramatic  episodes,  apt  contrast  of  character, 
exclusively  conversational  rendering,  and  unusual 
length,  indicates  that  it  may  be  an  "  ecloghe  rap- 
presentativa,"  perhaps  intended  to  satirize  in  dra- 
matic presentation  some  of  the  favorite  bits  of 
fish  lore  found  in  Italian  eclogues.48 

47  The   other  piece   is    a   conventional    allegorical   eulogy 
for  Ferrante,  lately  dead.     It  is  imitated  from  Santiazaro's 
Phyllis.     A    touch    from    Theocritus    is    "  Poverty    which 
never  sleeps  and  never  concedes  a  full  rest." 

48  The  old1  man  insists  on  the  truth  of  all  his  statements, 
and  the  youth  declares  that  he  believes  them  all. 


76  IDYLLS  OF  FISHERMEN 

THE  FISHER  DRAMA 

Meanwhile  the  fisher  conventions  made  their 
way  into  the  drama  in  exactly  the  same  manner 
as  earlier  into  romance.  Tasso's  pastoral  play 
"Amyntas"  met  with  extraordinary  success  and 
among  numerous  imitations  adaptations  to  the 
"new  style"  soon  found  a  place.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  note  that  Tasso  himself  thought  favorably 
of  the  piscatory  idea,  and  at  one  time  intended 
to  compose  a  drama  of  fishers  as  a  companion 
piece  with  his  Amyntas,  a  scheme  suggested  by 
Signer  Alessandro  d'Este,  who  between  1580  and 
1582  wrote,  reminding  him  of  the  triumph  of  his 
pastoral,  and  urging  that  he  should  try  his  hand 
at  a  maritime  or  fisher  play.  The  poet  replied  in 
this  sonnet : 

"  O  child  of  high  talent,  in  the  midst  of  the  waves 
was  born  the  goddess  who  is  honored  by  Paphos 
and  Cnidos,  as  is  known  to  fame,  by  old  report,  and 
she  still  loves  the  sea  and  its  shores.  Not  only 
among  rough  trunks  and  green  leaves  does  she  make 
a  sweet  nest,  but  in  the  cavernous  reef  and  on  salty 
bank,  with  her  little  boy,  sometimes  she  hides  her- 
self. Then  the  fugitive  Cyclops  Galatea  calls  forth 
from  a  high  rock  in  the  waters.  The  seals  and  the 
whales  are  consumed  with  love,  and  if  when  I  cele- 
brated with  bold  song  the  shady  woods,  and  the  song 
was  liked  let  it  be  liked  if  I  shall  exalt  the  sunny 
sands." 

A  little  later  Tasso  wrote  a  second  sonnet,  in 
which  he  relinquished  the  idea : 

"  O  holy  son,  born  of  great  leaders,  little  boy 
Alessandro,  in  vain  dost  thou  desire  me  to  sing  of 


SANNAZARO   AND   HIS   IMITATORS  77 

rough  man  who  raves  and  loves,  and  dost  wish 
that  my  song  may  accompany  thy  sports,  either 
along  a  pretty  river,  or  yet  beside  the  lively  founts 
and  under  the  green  branches,  or  yet  among  reefs 
and  waves  and  nets  and  hooks,  grieving  for  love, 
sighing  and  weeping.  It  seems  that  I  (who  many 
years  ago  wrote  plays),  can  not  now  write  so  far 
from  the  woods  and  the  shores.  Place  me  (it  is 
time)  where  the  green  top  of  the  thick  wood  is 
moved  murmuring,  and  the  placid  sea  stirs  beneath 
the  summer  breeze." 

But  though  Tasso  gave  up  the  idea  it  occurred 
to  the  young  Antonio  Ongaro  at  just  that  time, 
for  in  the  summer  of  1581,  at  Rome,  was  played 
his  "Alceo,"  of  which  the  plot  is  taken  directly 
from  the  Amyntas,  but  in  which  the  scene  is 
changed  to  the  seashore.  Trie  imitation  is  so 
obvious  that  the  piece  has  been  aptly  termed 
"Amyntas  soaked."  Almost  every  passage  in 
Tasso's  drama  is  paralleled  by  its  marine  equiva- 
lent— Venus  dons  the  dress  of  a  fisher  maiden 
and  determines  to  humble  the  cold  Eurilla,  who 
scorns  the  fisher  Alceo.  The  latter  is  aided  and 
comforted  by  the  fisher  Timeta,  while  Alcippe 
strives  in  vain  to  soften  the  heart  of  Eurilla. 
Tasso's  lustful  satyr,  lurking  near  the  pool  to 
seize  the  shepherdess,  becomes  in  Ongaro's  play 
an  equally  lustful  triton,  hiding  in  a  harbor  to 
catch  the  fisher  girl  with  her  nets.49  Of  course 
his  wicked  attempt  is  frustrated  by  the  valor  of 
Alceo.  Even  the  Golden  Age  chorus  in  Amyntas 

49  He  utters  a  complaint  like  that  in  Sannazaro's  Galatea, 
and  says,  like  Polyphemus  "  When  I  look  into  the  quiet 
sea,  I  do  not  think  I  am  a  monster." 


78  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

finds  an  echo  in  a  chorus  of  fisher  folk,  praising 
life  by  the  sea.  Of  course  at  the  end  Alceo  takes 
the  same  leap  as  does  the  hero  of  the  pastoral 
drama,  only  the  fisher  leaps  to  the  sea,  and  jumps 
twice  before  the  heart  of  his  mistress  is  softened 
by  his  devotion.50 

Another  evidence  of  the  vogue  of  the  fisher 
convention51  is  found  in  the  sonnet.  Those  by 
Tasso  already  cited  may  have  suggested  the  idea 
of  composing  piscatory  sonnets  to  others,  for  in 
the  next  century  occasional  pieces  of  the  sort 
made  their  appearance.  Of  these  the  following, 
by  A.  Marchetti,  is  a  typical  example: 

"  Nice,  now  that  the  star  of  love  is  rising  from  the 
orient,  and  with  disheveled  hair  shines  with  pure 
and  divine  beauty,  the  messenger  of  a  new,  clear 
dawn — take  the  nets,  and  in  this  little  boat,  come 
and  fish  for  ragui  and  soles  and  ombrine.  Of  them 
in  the  quiet  neighboring  waters  we  will  make  an 
abundant  and  beautiful  catch.  Come,  do  not  fear 
that  suddenly  the  calm  of  the  sea  be  disturbed,  as 
often  is  wont  to  happen,  by  the  tempest  or  wind ; 
because  thy  sweet  looks,  thy  words  will  make  the 
sky  smile  and  every  element,  and  clearer  than  ever 
will  the  sun  be  born." 

Thus  fisher  pastorals  of  many  kinds  became 
common  in  Italy  after  the  publication  of  Sanna- 
zaro's  poems.  During  the  next  century  they  were 
not  so  frequently  composed,  but  the  genre  lh> 

60  Ace.  Angela  Solerti  similar  imitations  of  Amyntas  were 
common  for  more  than  a  century.  One  is  a  "  Favola 
Pescatoria,"  Venice,  1612.  Battista  (Giovanni)  Ruffino. 

51  Another  set  of  Itailia-n  piscatory  eclogues  imitated 
from  Sannazaro  by  S.  Berardino  were  published  ait  Naples 
in  1560,  "  L'egloghe  Pescatorie." 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  79 

gered  on,  and  so  late  as  the  middle  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  we  find  in  the  works  of  Parini52 
evidence  of  the  persistence  of  the  seaside  pas- 
toral. He  wrote  a  fisher  romance,  in  imitation 
of  the  Arcadia,  bucolic  eclogues,  piscatory  ec- 
logues, and  the  following  sonnet: 

"  I  am  dying  at  last,  O  cruel  Eumolpi,  on  these 
wet  nets  in  the  boat  where  thou  seest  me  lying;  but 
I  will  not  accuse  thee  of  still  grudging  me  a  cold 
sigh.  O  scaly  herds,  no  longer  fear  the  blows  of 
my  trident ;  at  last  is  departing  for  other  shores  he 
who  with  every  net  was  wont  to  draw  from  the 
waves  a  full  load  of  tenie  and  polypi.  Take,  o  my 
companions,  my  rods  (Ah  a  thousand  times  be  it 
given  to  you  to  see  their  tops  bent!)  or  my  nets. 
Only  this  little  boat  shall  come  with  me,  to  cross, 
black  Styx,  thy  whirl-pools,  when  Charon  will  deny 
a  passage  to  so  unhappy  a  wretch." 

This  piece  differs  in  no  essentials  from  those 
composed  a  hundred  years  earlier,  and  the  same 
thing  is  presumably  true  of  his  romance,53  and 
certainly  true  of  the  three  fisher  eclogues  among 
his  pastorals.  Two  of  the  latter  are  love  com- 
plaints bearing  exactly  the  same  relationship  to 
Sannazaro's  work54  as  do  the  eclogues  of  Rota, 
written  nearly  two  centuries  earlier,  except  that 
like  the  pieces  produced  in  the  late  sixteenth  cen- 
tury they  display  a  humor  that  marks  a  reaction 
against  pastoral  affectations.  This  tendency  is 
most  pronounced  in  the  last  idyll,  one  of  rude 

52Poesie,  Firenze,   1889. 

63  Composed  before   1759 — now  lost. 

54 "  Galatea." 


80  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

banter  imitated55  from  Virgil.  One  fisher  is  ac- 
cused of  singing  as  sweetly  as  a  scratching  file, 
so  that  a  band  of  frogs  fled  in  dismay.  He  re- 
plies that  the  sea-goddesses  burst  with  laughter 
when  his  rival  sang.  In  the  contest  that  follows 
these  insults  Nilalga  declares  that  his  fisher  girl 
has  golden  hair — the  gold  with  which  the  salpi 
sparkles,  and  the  shining  eye  of  the  gold-fish. 
One  day  she  kissed  him,  whereupon  the  fishes 
along  the  shores  "  swam  to  and  fro  full  of  envy." 
A  good  example  of  Parini's  manner  is  furnished 
by  the  designs  which  he  describes  on  a  bowl,56  in 
which 

"  is  cut  a  fisherman,  who  standing  on  a  high  reef 
is  preying  on  the  frisking  schools  with  rod  and 
hook.  Near  him  are  three  laughing  children,  who 
gather  the  prey  on  the  beach,  and  then  play  among 
themselves.  And  here  is  one  who,  intrepid  and 
daring,  a  companion  clutches  by  the  hair  because 
he  has  stolen  a  fish.  Here  four  young  girls  are 
washing  their  pretty,  white  feet  in  the  shade  of  a 
clump  of  bushes.  They  are  sitting  on  the  soft,  green 
grass,  and  with  their  skirts  lifted  higher  than  their 
knees,  show  their  pure  and  alabaster  legs.  Then  a 
troop  of  tritons  is  laughing  at  the  unwary  and  in- 
expert four  from  behind  a  rock." 

So  much  for  late  survivals  of  the  orthodox  pis- 
catory conventions.  Examples  of  Italian  fisher 
poetry  of  later  periods,  such  for  instance,  as  Li 
Piscaturi,57  by  the  Sicilian  Giovanni  Meli,  are 
little  influenced  by  the  Sannazarian  manner,  and 

KEc.  3. 

66  From  Theocritus,  or  from  the  imitation  by  Parthenius. 

w  See  Opere  di  Giovanni  Meli.     Palermo,  1838. 


SANNAZARO   AND   HIS   IMITATORS  8 1 

are  rendered  in  various  free  and  vigorous  lyric 
forms. 

THE  SPREAD  OF  THE  FISHER  PASTORAL  TO  SPAIN 
AND  FRANCE 

The  well-known  subjection  of  Spanish  literature, 
particularly  of  the  pastoral,  to  Italian  models58 
during  the  first  part  of  the  sixteenth  century  was 
probably  due  as  much  as  anything  to  the  simi- 
larity of  the  languages,  which  facilitated  the 
transference  of  Italian  verse  forms  into  Spanish, 
and  the  introduction  of  such  forms  was  the  more 
natural  in  that  the  native  pastoralism  of  popular 
tradition  formed  precedent  for  the  poets.  In 
Spain  as  in  Italy,  successful  imitation  of  the 
classics  by  those  who  attempted  the  more  strictly 
Virgilian  form  of  pastoral,  or  renaissance  vari- 
ants of  that  form,  preceded  the  composition  of 
fisher  eclogues.  Thus,  to  be  exact,  we  find  that 
Spanish  imitations  of  Sannazaro's  Arcadia  and 
of  the  poems  in  that  romance  led  the  way  to  imi- 
tation of  Sannazaro's  piscatory  idylls. 

Precedent  for  imitations  of  these  pieces  had 
existed  from  the  very  earliest  times  in  the  native 
fisher  songs  along  the  coasts  of  the  Galaico- 

88  The  earliest  evidence  is  found  in  the  eclogues  by 
Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  comp.  1526? — pub.  1543.  These  are 
based  on  eclogues  in  the  Arcadia.  Other  imitations  of 
Italian  models  are  by  Boscan,  Mendoza,  Cervantes,  Lope 
de  Vega,  Pedro  de  Encinas  and  many  more.  The  Arcadia 
was  first  imitated  by  the  Portuguese  Bernardim  Ribeiro 
(1475-1524)  in  his  "  Menina  e  Moca."  A  Spanish  trans- 
lation of  the  Arcadia  appeared  in  1561.  Jorge  de  Monte- 
mor's  Diana  (1561)  is  influenced  by  Sannazaro's  romance 
also. 


82  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Portuguese  region,  so  that  just  as  rural  Galicia 
is  thought  to  have  left  its  stamp  on  the  exotic 
bucolics,  the  lyrics  of  the  shore  may  have  affected 
the  analogous  renaissance  piscatories.  At  any 
rate  such  lyrics  are  of  common  occurrence  in  col- 
lections of  old  songs,59  in  "  villanescas  de  mar," 
and  in  "  vers  de  ledino."  These  constitute  a  spe- 
cies by  themselves,  perhaps  akin  in  origin  to  other 
native  lyrics  of  fisher  folk  among  the  romance 
peoples.  They  are  usually  songs  with  refrains, 
mere  snatches  of  melody  suited  to  the  rough  toils 
of  fishermen,  and  giving  the  effect  of  having  been 
composed  to  the  swing  of  the  oar.  There  is  a 
sad  note  in  most  of  these  pieces,  and  in  many 
cases  the  same  suggestion  of  unrequited  love, 
which  forms  the  favorite  theme  of  the  fisher 
pastoral  in  Italy. 

It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  the  first  imitation 
of  Sannazaro's  Latin  eclogues  in  Spain  should  be 
found  in  the  work  of  a  Portuguese,  Louis  de 
Camoes,  whose  experiment  in  the  genre,  the 
"  Song  Contest,"  may  have  been  composed  as 
early  as  1546.  In  the  introductory  lines  express- 
ing a  determination  to  repeat  the  contest  that 
once  arose  between  the  singers  of  the  pastures 
and  of  the  seashore,  the  poet  declares  that  he  will 
sing  in  a  way  once  followed  on  another  shore  by 
"a  man  beloved  by  the  Muses — Sincerus  the 
fisherman,"  but  that  he  will  "  enter  the  domain 
of  the  new  style  true  to  Virgil,  without  devia- 
tion." Accordingly  he  tells  how  the  shepherd 

68  Martin  Codax,  in  particular,  seems  to  have  dedicated 
himself  to  this  sort  of  poetry.  Juan  Zarro  wrote  pieces  very 
like  modern  "  barcarolas."  See  bib.  "  Pelayo." 


SANNAZARO   AND   HIS   IMITATORS  83 

Agrario,  in  a  sad  reverie,  left  his  flock  and  wan- 
dered to  the  coast,  where  in  a  cavern  he  heard  the 
fisher  boy  Alicuto  singing  about  Lemnoria.  The 
charm  of  the  fisher  song  filled  the  rustic  with 
admiration,  and  a  conversation  ensued,  ending 
with  an  agreement  to  hold  a  contest.  This  match 
took  place  before  throngs  of  shepherds  and 
fishers,60  and  the  alternate  strains  place  side  by 
side  the  new  manner  in  pastoral  with  the  old,  all 
Alicuto's  words  being  deliberate  imitation  of  the 
songs  in  Sannazaro's  contest  between  fishers, 
while  Agrario's  utterances  are  imitated  from  the 
corresponding  trial  of  skill  between  swains  in  the 
Virgilian  eclogue  which  Sannazaro  rendered  ma- 
rine.61 Thus  the  piece  is  based  both  on  Virgil 
and  on  Sannazaro.  At  the  same  time  Camoes' 
employment  of  pathetic  fallacy  shows  that  he  was 
influenced  by  the  fantastic  conceits  of  Italian 
fisher  pastoral,  and  so  we  find  that  when  his  Ali- 
cuto sings,  fish  pop  their  heads  out  of  the  water 
in  ecstasy,  while  dolphins  race  madly  along  shore. 
In  spite  of  its  artificiality  this  poem  has  a  color 
and  freshness  which  show  that  even  in  adapting 
at  once  two  rival  forms,  Camoes  was  too  much 
of  a  poet  to  produce  a  stilted  rendering.  He  was 
equally  successful  in  his  complaint  of  the  fisher 
Sereno  to  Galatea,  "  The  Scorned  Fisherman,"  a 
piece  imitated  from  Sannazaro  alone.62  The  elabo- 
ration of  both  these  fisher  pastorals  is  greater 
than  that  in  most  contemporary  Italian  eclogues. 
Cam5es  termed  fisher  pastoral  "  the  new  style," 

60  Cf.   Samr*.  fragmentum. 

61  P.  ec.  3. 

62  EC.  2,  "Galatea." 


84  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

and  his  example  may  have  suggested  to  Diogo 
Bernardes  the  idea  of  attempting  further  imita- 
tion. Two  of  his  eclogues,  "  The  Fisher's  Woo- 
ing "  and  "  The  Fisher's  Lament,"  published  in 
I59663  are  so  like  poems  by  Camoes  that  they  are 
sometimes  printed  with  his  works,  and  at  the  same 
time  they  are  modeled  on  the  pastorals  of  Sanna- 
zaro.  The  first  of  these  idylls  is  another  imita- 
tion of  the  humanist's  oft-imitated  "  Galatea," 
and  the  second  is  merely  a  variant  on  the  same 
theme,  though  it  attempts  the  realistic  detail  of 
Theocritus.  Thus  the  fisher  Meliso's  plaint  is 
wailed  to  the  moon-lit  sea,  and  near  him  lie  his 
old  fishing  boat,  with  the  sails,  spars,  seines  and 
tackle  under  shelter  on  the  beach.  One  touch 
suggests  the  myth  of  Arion.  The  singer  tells 
how  he  once  sat  in  his  skiff  moaning  a  complaint 
to  his  cruel  Lilia,  when  emotion  overcame  him, 
so  that  he  fell  senseless  into  the  waves.  Luckily 
a  soft-hearted  dolphin,  moved  by  his  sweet  voice, 
bore  him  back  to  his  boat  in  safety. 

Of  somewhat  later  composition  than  these  pas- 
torals is  Calderon's  "  El  Golfo  de  Las  Sirenas," 
which  he  styles  an  "  Ecloga  Piscatoria."  The 
passages  on  fisher  life  recall  the  conventions  char- 
acterizing many  idylls  already  considered,  but  the 
piece  is  rather  a  short  play  than  an  eclogue,  and 
is  an  isolated  example  of  the  occurrence  of  the 
motive  in  early  Spanish  drama.  A  few  words 
will  suffice  to  give  an  idea  of  the  plot.  In  the 
spring  a  gallant  fisher,  Silenus,  a  boorish  fisher, 

83  One  was  printed  in  Bernardes'  "  Olyma  "  as  "  Galatea," 
ec.  2.  The  other  was  printed  as  "  Lilia"  ec.  pise.  13.  (See 
Storck's  Ger.  tr.,  pp.  423  fol.) 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  85 

Alfaeus,  and  two  village  maidens,  Astrea  and 
Celpha,  chance  to  meet.  It  is  proposed  that  they 
ascend  the  mountains,  with  music-girls  and  vil- 
lage choruses,  to  celebrate  the  season  with  its 
deities,  but  Alfaeus  reminds  them  that  Scylla,  re- 
jected by  Neptune  for  Amphitrite,  has  retreated 
to  the  hills,  where  she  remains  unrelentingly  bitter 
against  all  seafolk,  whether  gods  or  men,  and  that 
to  see  her  is  fatal.  Nearby  amid  the  reefs  lurks 
Charybdis,  daughter  of  the  sea  god  Aglaucus  and 
of  a  siren.  She  hates  sea-farers  because  Aglau- 
cus spurns  her  mother,  and  her  voice  leads  sailors 
to  destruction.  Fisher- folk  have  an  understand- 
ing with  these  grim  deities,  and  must  not  worship 
others  lest  vengeance  come  upon  them.  As  they 
talk  a  wreck  is  sighted  and  the  cries  of  Ulysses 
and  his  crew  rend  the  air.  Scylla  and  Charybdis 
call  down  destruction  upon  them,  but  nevertheless 
Ulysses  with  two  servants  is  saved.  Scylla  now 
disputes  with  Charybdis  as  to  which  of  the  two 
is  more  baneful,  Scylla  who  kills  by  the  eye,  or 
Charybdis  who  kills  by  the  hearing.  The  debate 
is  very  subtle  and  clever,  the  poet  here  defining 
the  esthetics  of  the  eye  and  of  the  ear.  To  settle 
the  difficulty  they  agree  to  try  their  power  on 
Ulysses,  who  is  to  be  the  exclusive  victim  of  the 
winner.  In  the  contest  now  one,  now  the  other, 
seems  to  be  winning,  and  the  Greek  is  filled  with 
conflicting  emotions,  but  he  is  rescued  by  his  fol- 
lowers, who  lead  to  him  Celpha  and  Alfaeus,  by 
whom  he  is  warned  of  his  danger  just  in  time. 
He  procures  a  skiff,  in  which  he  embarks  with 
the  fisher  as  an  unwilling  pilot.  The  enraged 


86  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

gods  rouse  earthquakes,  while  Sirens  strive  to 
attack  Ulysses,  but  the  wily  prince  escapes.  The 
reefs  Scylla  and  Charybdis  are  thrown  up  by  the 
convulsion.  Ulysses  casts  Alfaeus  into  the  sea, 
where  he  is  swallowed  by  a  monstrous  fish  which 
later  disgorges  him  on  the  shore.  The  fisherman 
now  hears  within  a  hollow  mountain  the  voices 
of  maidens,  beseeching  him  to  free  them  from  the 
dungeon  in  which  they  are  imprisoned  by  Scylla 
under  the  care  of  a  savage.  He  refuses  his  aid, 
but  the  hideous  guardian  appears,  and  begins  to 
prate  "  old  wives'  "  tales  to  him,  and  on  his  scorn- 
ing these  the  savage  conveniently  dies.  "  He  that 
listens  not  to  a  savage  doth  kill  him."  Among 
those  thus  rescued  is  Celpha,  whose  gratitude  to 
the  fisher  makes  them  forget  their  former  dislike 
for  each  other. 

The  play  has  little  in  common  with  Italian 
dramas  like  Ongaro's  Alceo  except  fishermen  as 
characters,  and  even  they  are  not  nearly  so  im- 
portant as  the  powers  symbolized,  with  the  alle- 
gorical treatment  of  their  employment  against 
Ulysses.  In  spite  of  Calderon's  calling  the  work 
a  piscatory  eclogue,  then,  it  has  little  connection 
with  the  Sannazarian  species  so  far  as  structure  is 
concerned.  The  case  is  different  with  the  Spanish 
eclogues  by  Camoes  and  Bernardes.  These  re- 
semble the  Italian  imitations  of  Sannazaro  in 
their  ornate  and  lengthy  treatment,  but  differ 
from  them  in  the  retention  of  more  numerous 
specific  touches  suggestive  of  their  common  mod- 
els. Such  poems  seem  to  have  been  only  of  spo- 
radic occurrence  in  Spain,  and  do  not  indicate 


SANNAZARO   AND   HIS   IMITATORS  87 

that  the  foreign  fisher  idyll  ever  gained  much  of 
a  foothold  in  the  peninsula.  They  illustrate,  how- 
ever, the  wide  dissemination  of  the  fisher  pastoral 
that  followed  Sannazaro's  work. 

THE  PISCATORY  IN  FRANCE 

The  fisher  eclogue  made  its  way  into  French 
literature  in  the  same  manner  as  into  Spanish, 
following  imitation64  of  other  Italian  pastoral 
forms  after  a  short  interval  of  time.  At  a  time 
when  the  Pleiade  group  of  poets  in  France  was 
urging  the  exaltation  of  the  vernacular  through 
imitation  of  the  classics,  it  was  inevitable  that 
Sannazaro's  idylls  should  meet  with  approval, 
because  of  his  remarkable  success  as  a  Latinist. 
The  stamp  of  official  approval,  in  fact,  was  em- 
phatically given  to  his  eclogues  in  the  famous 
manifesto  of  the  Pleiade,  "  La  Defense  et  Illus- 
tration de  la  Langue  Francaise."  Du  Bellay  rec- 
ommended the  composition  of  pleasant  rustic 
eclogues  after  the  example  of  Theocritus  or 
Virgil,  and  of  marine  eclogues  after  the  example 
of  Sannazaro. 

The  first  to  follow  this  dictum  concerning  ma- 
rines was  another  distinguished  member  of  the 
Pleiade  group  of  poets,  Remy  Belleau,  whose 
"  Bergerie  "  owes  much  to  Sannazaro's  Arcadia. 

64  Thus  Margaret  of  Navarre  made  a  French  transla- 
tion of  Sannazaro's  "  Salices,"  1543:  "  L'Histoire  des 
Satyres  et  Nymphes  de  Diane."  In  1544  Giovanni  Martin 
translated  the  Arcadia.  Du  Bellay  himself  translated  and 
imitated  parts  of  the  Arcadia.  His  "  Jeux  Rustiques " 
owes  much  to  Arcadia,  and  to  Sannazaro's  P.  Ecs.  and  to 
his  Latin  epigrams. 


88  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

This  indebtedness  is  traceable  in  the  general  plan 
of  the  French  work,  made  up  as  it  is  of  prose 
passages  and  of  eclogues,05  and  in  occasional  spe- 
cific imitations.60  The  story  of  Sannazaro's  first 
exile  in  France,  of  his  return  to  Italy  and  of  the 
death  of  Carmosina  is  veiled  by  the  idealized  pic- 
tures of  shepherd  life  in  the  Arcadia.  The"  Ber- 
gerie,"  on  the  other  hand,  is  rather  an  eulogy  of 
sixteenth  century  France,  and  is  aimed  especially 
to  describe  the  charm  of  country  life  during  the 
various  seasons. 

In  one  part  of  the  work,  the  "  Seconde  Jour- 
nee,"  fisher  eclogues  figure  as  a  literary  "tour 
de  force,"  intended  to  show  how  gracefully  that 
sort  of  thing  could  be  handled  in  French.  Each 
poem  is  preceded  by  an  appropriate  prose  intro- 
duction, the  first  of  which  represents  a  party 
strolling  through  a  formal  garden,  where  they 
heard  the  voice  of  a  fisher  on  the  banks  of  the 
river  Marne.  As  they  drew  nearer  they  saw  the 
singer,  a  handsome  youth,  fishing  with  hook  and 
line.  He  had  stationed  himself  below  an  over- 
hanging rock  on  purpose  to  wail  "complaints  to 
the  wind  and  waves,"  while  his  skiff  with  the 
tackle  lay  nearby  on  the  sands.  Belleau  does  not 
explain  how  a  towering  cliff  and  "  rough  billows  " 
happened  to  be  found  at  the  foot  of  the  trim  gar- 
den, among  the  willows,  but  they  were  evidently 
needed  as  a  background  for  what  followed.  The 

88  And  other  lyrics  not  modeled  on  formal  eclogues,  like 
the  beautiful  lyric  "  Avril." 

98  As  in  Belleau's  "  Winter,"  where  borrowings  from 
Arcadia  prose  9  and  prose  10  are  found.  Part  one  of 
"Bergerie"  pub.  1565.  Part  two  and  the  p.  ecs.  1572. 


SANNAZARO   AND   HIS   IMITATORS  89 

fisherman  was  in  love,  and  as  soon  as  he  saw  the 
newcomers  "  he  began  to  sing  aloud  as  if  he  had 
sworn  to  please  us."  His  first  words  are  an 
apostrophe  to  Poverty,  probably  borrowed  from 
the  induction  to  the  Theocritean  fisher  idyll. 
After  this  he  tells  how  love  has  come  in  the 
guise  of  a  fisherman  and  "  baited  his  hook  with 
Catin's  eyes  "  which  the  singer  has  swallowed  and 
so  been  caught.  His  complaint  to  this  damsel  is 
merely  a  French  rendering  of  the  analogous  one 
in  Sannazaro,  but  curiously  enough,  he  is  stated 
to  have  sung  it  "  till  night,"  and  yet  the  audience 
did  not  grow  impatient.  On  the  contrary  Bel- 
leau  says : 

"  I  promise  you  this  gentle  fisher  gave  us  so  much 
pleasure,  and  recited  his  passionate  eclogue  with 
such  good  grace  that  he  made  us  forget  our  talk 
...  he  told  us  that  he  had  once  been  on  the  sea 
and  that  an  old  Sicilian  mariner  had  taught  him 
the  complaint,  with  an  infinite  number  of  others 
that  we  made  him  tell  us." 

One  of  these,  "  The  Fisherman,"  dedicated  to 
"Lord  Antoine  de  Baif,"  is  a  French  imitation 
of  Sannazaro's  song  contest,67  composed  with 
many  realistic  touches,68  such  as  a  cavern  for  a 
background,  skiffs,  tackle  left  lying  in  confusion, 
and  fishermen  all  along  the  beach  drawing  fish 
from  their  hooks.  Having  rendered  this  piece 
the  youth  handed  to  his  listeners  a  paper  on  which 
were  traced  "Larmes  Sur  Le  Trespas  De  Mon- 
seigneur  Rene  de  Lorraine,  Marquis  d'Elbeuf." 

"Ec.   3. 

68  As  in  Sann.  and  Tbeoc. 


90  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

This  proves  to  be  an  elegiac  eclogue  in  which 
three  fishers  lament  the  death  of  the  marquis,  and 
extol  his  virtues,  and  his  victories  in  naval  battles 
on  many  seas,  all  of  it  modeled  on  Sannazaro.69 

The  fisher  is  so  obliging  as  to  sing  also  lines 
on  the  "  Tombeau  de  Madame  Loyse  de  Rieux 
Marquise  d'Elbeuf,"  a  marine  elegy  in  which  the 
poet  calls  on  the  Nereids,  who  wept  when  Thetis 
mourned  the  death  of  Achilles,  to  weep  for  the 
French  Marquise.  In  the  course  of  the  eulogy 
Belleau  invokes  Palemon,  Glaucus,  Panope  and 
many  other  divinities  of  ocean.  In  another  piece 
a  shepherd  who  has  lost  his  way  by  night  peeps 
through  the  window  of  a  cabin  where  he  sees  an 
old  woman  performing  incantations  and  trans- 
fixing a  waxen  image,  to  win  back  "  him  who  put 
her  in  such  frenzy." 

Lastly  Belleau's  fisherman  proves  that  he  is 
weather-wise  by  two  songs,  one  on  the  celestial 
appearances  of  the  sun,  and  the  other  on  those 
of  the  moon,  "  astronomical  eclogues,"  like  some 
of  the  "  idyllia  "  of  Ausonius,  only  much  shorter, 
and  perhaps  meant  as  French  adaptations  of  a 
leading  motive  in  Virgil's  first  Georgic.  Thus 
the  French  poet  makes  a  single  fisherman  render 
in  French  the  themes  of  all  Sannazaro's  pisca- 
tories,  singing  a  contest,  a  love  complaint,  an 
elegy,  and  a  "  pharmaceutria."  The  eclogues  are 
graceful  imitations,  but  rather  more  artificial  than 
most  earlier  examples  of  the  kind.  The  neat 
garden,  the  wall,  and  the  willows  along  the  stream 
are  difficult  to  harmonize  with  the  songs  sung  by 

MEc.  i. 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  91 

the  Sannazarian  fisher.  He  poses  with  marked 
assurance,  and  his  knowledge  of  astronomy,  with 
the  approving  comment  of  the  fashionable  au- 
dience, listening  with  delight  to  all  his  songs, 
make  a  mixture  that  it  is  impossible  to  match 
elsewhere  in  the  development  of  the  new  pastoral. 
It  is  only  fair  to  this  angler,  however,  to  say  that 
he  is  scarcely  more  courtly  and  polite  than  Bel- 
leau's  shepherds.  His  artificiality  is  simply  that 
of  the  pastoralism  of  France  at  this  period,  and 
whatever  he  does  he  hooks  no  dark  fish  to  match 
the  sooty  fleeces  worn  by  the  mourning  sheep  in 
the  eclogues  of  Marot. 

One  year  after  the  publication  of  the  "  Ber- 
gerie"  appeared  what  Estienne  Jodelle  called 
"  Les  Pescheries,  Bergeries  et  Eglogues  de  Chasse 
de  Claude  Binet."70  Of  these  the  only  fisher  ec- 
logue proves  to  be  a  short  piece  in  the  Sanna- 
zarian manner,  giving  the  prayer  of  a  fisher  to 
Neptune,  king  of  the  sea.  It  is  likely  that  Binet's 
experiment  was  suggested  by  Belleau's  pastoral, 
but  the  only  considerable  work  inspired  by  the 
"  Bergerie  "  is  "  Les  Pescheries,"  by  Christophe  de 
Gamon  (1598).  The  eclogues  and  monologues 
of  which  this  consists  include  many  passages  imi- 
tated from  Theocritus,  Sannazaro  and  Belleau, 
but  the  fisher  element  consists  for  the  most  part 
in  ornate  and  minute  description  of  actual  angling, 
something  for  which  we  search  in  vain  among 
the  classic  examples  of  the  species.  "  Les  Pesch- 
eries" fairly  bristles  with  Ronsardian  epithets 

70 Jodelle  ed.  1670  ("La  Pleiade  Fr."  Lemerre,  pp. 
334 — a  poem  on  Binet).  For  Binet  see  "  Quelques  Autres 
diverses  Poesies  de  Cl.  Binet,"  Paris,  1573. 


92  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

and  effects,  and  may  almost  be  called  a  fisher 
corruption  of  Ronsard. 

Another  evidence  of  the  occasional  occurrence 
of  fisher  pastorals  in  the  latter  part  of  the  six- 
teenth century  in  France  is  a  translation  of 
Ongaro's  "Alceo,"71  and  a  second  version  ap- 
peared in  the  seventeenth  century.  All  these 
French  pieces,  however,  were  of  scarcely  more 
than  casual  importance  in  the  imitation  of  the 
classics  urged  by  the  Pleiade,  and  were  probably 
unknown  to  the  English  eclogue  writers,  whose 
works  were  not  influenced  by  them.  Like  the 
Spanish,  Italian  and  at  a  later  date,  German  imi- 
tations of  Sannazaro,  they  serve  simply  to  illus- 
trate the  wide  diffusion  of  the  "  new  style "  in 
renaissance  Europe. 

It  is  worthy  of  mention,  too,  that  fishing  ap- 
pears an  occasional  occupation  of  shepherds  in 
nearly  all  the  most  famous  pastorals  from  the 
time  of  Theocritus  to  that  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 
In  most  cases  we  are  reminded  of  the  gentle  craft 
by  mere  casual  allusion,  and  it  would  be  easy  to 
cite  many  passages  similar  to  one  that  is  to  be 
found  in  Bonarelli's  drama  Filli  Di  Sciro,  when 
old  Melisso,  suspecting  a  plot  against  his  supposed 
daughter  Cloris,  says  to  her : 

"  I  with  my  Hooks  and  Nets,  will  towards  the  Sea, 
Direct  my  steps,  pretending  there  to  fish, 
And  so  shall  spie  which  way  the  Thracians  tend."72 

n  By  Roland  Brisset,  Paris,  1596.  Another  by  Claude 
le  Villain,  Paris,  1602. 

72  Act  L,  Scene  2.  Translation  by  J.  S.  (Jonathan 
Sidnam).  London,  1655. 


SANNAZARO   AND    HIS   IMITATORS  93 

Discussion  of  such  scattered  bits  would  not  be 
at  all  worth  while,  but  at  least  one  pastoral  is  to 
be  found  illustrating  an  actual  blending  of  the 
piscatory  with  the  bucolic  motive,  and  this  is  one 
of  Alexander  Hardie's  early  dramatic  idylls, 
Alcee,  published  at  Paris  in  1624.  This  work 
has  been  considered73  as  in  no  essential  different 
from  the  author's  pastoral  Corine,  and  as  of 
purely  Italian  inspiration,  one  more  example  of 
the  persistence  of  the  form  rendered  popular  by 
Tasso's  Amyntas.  It  is  true,  nevertheless,  that 
it  belongs  in  part  to  the  line  of  successors  to  the 
idyll  of  the  two  old  fishermen  by  Theocritus, 
while  the  title  suggests  the  possible  influence  of 
Ongaro's  Alceo.  Phedime,  Hardie's  old  fisher, 
lives  a  life  of  harsh  and  fruitless  labor  on  the  sea. 
He  owns  nothing  but  his  hut,  his  skiff,  and  nets, 
and  his  only  comforts  are  his  daughter  Alcee  and 
Democle,  an  adopted  son,  whom  he  found  in  a 
cradle  cast  ashore  by  the  waves.  This  side  of 
the  picture  is  typical  of  the  piscatory  genre,  but 
the  plot  varies  little  from  those  of  the  Italian  pas- 
toral plays. 

Democle  assists  Phedime  with  the  nets  and 
oars;  in  good  time  the  young  couple  fall  in  love, 
and  eventually  are  betrothed.  Then  the  rich 
shepherd  Dorylas  offers  Phedime  enough  money 
to  enable  him  to  give  up  his  toilsome  life  in  re- 
turn for  the  hand  of  Alcee.  A  witch  tries  magic 
against  the  girl,  there  is  an  elopement  which  fails, 
the  young  fisher  is  saved  from  leaping  from  a 

73  La  Pastoral  Dramatique  en  France.  Jules  Marsan. 
Paris,  1905. 


94  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

rock  by  an  echo  and  Cupid,  and  finally,  just  when 
he  faces  banishment,  the  wealthy  Lygdame  recog- 
nizes him  as  his  son.  The  churlish  fisher,  of 
course,  now  allows  Alcee  to  marry  as  she  wishes, 
a  conclusion  which,  with  the  naive  simplicity  with 
which  the  play  presents  the  growth  of  love  in 
the  hearts  of  the  girl  and  boy,  harks  back  to 
Daphnis  and  Chloe. 

It  may  safely  be  assumed  that  in  France,  as  in 
Italy,  the  occupation  of  fishers  was  considered 
as  specially  sanctioned  by  holy  writ,  and  some  few 
pictures  were  probably  inspired  by  this  feeling. 
Thus  in  Saint-Amant's  epic  Moyse  Sauve74  we 
find  in  the  dialogue  of  the  fishermen  a  sort  of 
sacred  piscatory  eclogue,  and  the  same  thing  is 
true  of  Jean  Michel's  Mystere75  de  la  Passion,  in 
which  the  biblical  fishers,  St.  Andrew  and  St. 
Peter,  figure  in  a  fishing  scene.  We  shall  find 
this  same  sort  of  scene,  evidently  based  on  the 
Bible,  of  considerable  influence  in  England  at  a 
later  date. 

In  "  La  Plainte  du  Pecheur  "76  (headed  Fenes- 
tra  vascia — Naples)  we  find  an  isolated  example 
of  a  French  fisher  poem  based  directly  on  imita- 
tion of  the  characteristics  of  the  Italian  piscatory 
eclogue  of  extravagant  lament.  As  a  rule,  how- 
ever, later  illustrations  of  fisher  poetry  in  France 
have  apparently  little  if  any  connection  with  the 

74 1653. 

75  Mystere  de  la  Passion  avec  les  additions  et  corrections 
de  Maistre  Jean  Michel.     Late  fifteenth  century  (an  elabor- 
ation of  a  work  done  by  Arnoul  Greban  ante  1456). 

76  See    A.     Brizeus,     "  Les    Ternaires,"    Livre     Lyrique. 
Paris,  1841. 


SANNAZARO   AND   HIS   IMITATORS  95 

species  as  it  was  written  in  the  time  of  the 
Pleiade.  Thus  the  Jesuit  Jacob  Vanieri77  gives 
a  vivid  picture  of  fishing  with  the  rod  in  the  fif- 
teenth book  of  his  Praedium  Rusticum,  a  treatise 
on  fish,  and  another  somewhat  similar  illustration 
is  to  be  found  in  Franciscus  Champion's  "  Stag- 
na,"78  a  poem  in  Latin  hexameter  on  fish  ponds  and 
fish.  Idyllic  pictures  of  fishers  are  to  be  observed 
here  and  there,  notably  in  Jacques  De  Lille's79 
L'Homme  des  Champs."  The  poem  shows  obvi- 
ous traces  of  the  influence  of  Thomson's  "  Sea- 
sons," and  among  the  long  list  of  figures  de- 
scribed it  is  not  surprising  to  find  an  angler,  rod 
in  hand,  motionless  and  silent  under  the  cool 
willows  which  overhang  the  stream  in  which  he 
is  fishing. 

The  piscatory  motive  is  even  used  as  subject 
for  debate80  in  the  Disputatio  de  Piscatura  Haren- 
gorum  in  Roslagia:  respondente  Nils  Humbli, 
and  in  one  of  the  Colloquia  familiaria81  by  the 
Dutch  scholar,  Desiderius  Erasmus  (1531). 

Another  sporadic  example  of  the  recurrence  of 
the  piscatory  motive  is  seen  in  the  longing  for  the 
simple  life  of  a  deep-sea  fisher  expressed  in  La- 
mennais'  Une  Voix  de  Prison.82  Finally  a  single 
eclogue  by  Jacques  de  Fonteny,  "  Tolas,"  recalls 
by  its  title  and  general  tone  the  piscatories  of 
Sannazaro. 

T7  Tolossae,  1730,  and  many  later  editions. 

78  See  treatise  by  A.   Campaux. 

79  Jacques  DeLille,  Oeuvres,  Paris,  1824. 

80  By  N.  Frondius,  Upsal,  1745. 

81Venatio.     See   Colloquia  familiaria,   Leipsig,    1713. 
82  Lamennais,  Oeuvres,  Paris,  1844. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  ENGLISH  FISHER  IDYLLS 

Long  before  exotic  pastoralism  blossomed  in 
renaissance  England,  native  tradition  not  uncon- 
nected with  that  on  the  continent  existed  in  the 
shepherd  plays  of  the  Nativity,  and  in  such  bal- 
lads as  treated  the  story  of  the  wandering  knight 
who  made  love  to  the  shepherdess,  a  motive  com- 
mon at  an  early  date,  and  twice  used  by  Chaucer. 
This  native  tradition,  too,  was  not  without  points 
of  contact  with  the  later  literary  species  in 
England. 

The  case  was  otherwise  with  piscatory  poetry. 
English  literature  previous  to  the  Elizabethan 
period  included  no  variety  of  poetry  or  prose 
devoted  particularly  to  fisher-folk,  and  furnished 
no  tradition  of  indigenous  lyrics  sung  by  fishers, 
though  of  course  some  slight  precedent  for  the 
introduction  of  the  piscatory  pastoral  existed 
from  very  remote  times. 

In  England,  as  on  the  continent,  imitation  of 
Sannazaro  began  with  neo-Latin  pieces,  from 
which  it  afterwards  passed  into  the  vernacular, 
and  though  these  earlier  verses  have  been  for- 
gotten, they  can  not  reasonably  be  neglected  in  a 
history  of  the  pastoral  of  the  seashore.  Two 
eclogues  by  Giles  Fletcher  the  elder,  probably 
composed  before  his  graduation  from  Cambridge 
96 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  97 

in  1569,  combine  imitation  of  Virgil1  with  the 
introduction  of  Sannazarian  names,  and  other 
touches  suggestive  of  Sannazaro's  poems,  and 
with  marked  emphasis  on  fishing.  In  one  piece 
the  shepherd  Aegon  goes  angling,  and  chances  to 
hear  along  a  river's  banks  the  shouted  incanta- 
tions of  forsaken  Telethusa.  The  other  pastoral 
describes  a  stream  near  the  cot  of  Thestylus,  a 
swain  whose  poverty  often  forces  him  to  rely  on 
his  rod  for  food.  This  is  followed  by  a  picture 
of  the  man,  sitting  at  the  water's  edge,  with  his 
dog  crouching  beside  him,  and  holding  in  his 
hand  a  rod  of  cane,  to  the  nodding  tip  of  which 
is  attached  a  line,  equipped  with  hooks  and  a 
cork.  Having  cast  he  is  watching  the  float,  bob- 
bing on  the  water,  when  a  friend  comes  along  and 
they  fall  into  a  conversation,  dealing  allegorically 
with  the  tyranny  of  a  noble,  once  cruel  to  shep- 
herds (churchmen  and  poets),  whose  tomb  now 
lies  covered  by  brambles.  The  scene  described 
is  exactly  like  that  which  the  poet  often  saw  in 
his  native  Kent,  and  in  view  of  the  facts  that 
Fletcher's  son  Phineas  admired  these  eclogues 
and  wrote  Latin  piscatories,  perhaps  in  emula- 
tion, it  is  fair  to  class  them  as  connecting  links 
between  the  Sannazarian  pastoral  and  the  English 
imitations. 

Not  very  long  after  Fletcher  wrote  these  idylls, 
masques  of  sea-gods  were  introduced  in  court 
pageantry,  and  the  presentation  of  such  shows 

1  The  influence  of  Mamtuan  is  also  noticeable  in  these, 
and  in  another,  "  Myrtilus,"  in  which  that  swain  bewails 
the  "  general  neglect  of  shepherd  life."  Myrtilus  is  the 
poet,  and  "  Celadon  "  (cf.  Sannaza/ro)  is  a  friend. 

8 


98  IDYLLS   OF    FISHERMEN 

evidently  paved  the  way  for  the  later  fisher  play, 
just  as  masques  of  shepherds  did  for  the  better 
known  pastoral  drama.  Almost  the  earliest  of 
the  sort  extant  are  among  "  The  Princely  Pleas- 
ures at  Kenilworth  Castle,"2  given  for  the  enter- 
tainment of  Queen  Elizabeth  in  1575,  one  of 
which,  "  The  deliverie  of  the  Lady  of  the  Lake," 
may  be  cited  as  a  typical  marine  masque: 

"  Tryton,  in  likenesse  of  a  mermaide,  came 
towards  the  Queene's  Majestic  as  she  passed 
over  the  bridge,  returning  from  hunting:  and  to 
her  declared,  that  Neptune  had  sent  him  to  her 
Highnes,  to  declare  the  woeful  distresse  wherein 
the  poore  Ladie  of  the  Lake  did  remaine,  the 
cause  whereof  was  this.  Sir  Bruse  sauns  pitie, 
in  revenge  of  his  cosen  Merlyne  the  prophet, 
whom  for  his  inordinate  lust  she  had  inclosed  in 
a  rocke,  did  continuallie  pursue  the  Ladie  of  the 
Lake;  and  had  (long  sithens)  surprized  her,  but 
that  Neptune,  pitying  her  distresse,  had  envyroned 
her  with  waves.  Whereupon  she  was  enforced 
to  live  alwaies  in  that  Poole,  and  was  thereby 
called  the  Lady  of  the  Lake.  Furthermore  affirm- 
ing, that  by  Merlynes  prophecie,  it  seemed  she 
coulde  never  be  delivered  but  by  the  presence  of 
a  better  maide  than  herselfe.  Wherefore  Nep- 
tune had  sent  him  right  humbly  to  beseech  her 
Majestie,  that  she  would  no  more  but  shew  her- 
selfe, and  it  should  be  sufficient  to  make  Sir 
Bruse  withdrawe  his  forces.  Furthermore  com- 
manding both  the  waves  to  be  calme,  and  the 

2  EarEer  in  the  year,  at  Killingworth  castle,  a  very 
similar  masque  was  presented.  The  Queen  rode  on  a 
"  Mermaid "  eighteen'  feet  long. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  99 

fishes  to  give  their  attendance,  and  this  he  ex- 
pressed in  verse  as  followeth  .  .  ."  (here  come 
twenty  lines  of  verse),  and  after  this  introduc- 
tion, "The  Speech  of  Tryton  to  the  Queene's 
Majestic."  Having  delivered  his  speech — "  Here- 
with Triton  sounded  his  trompe,  and  spake  to 
the  Winds,  Waters,  and  Fishe  as  followeth,"  the 
second  address  concluding  this  portion  of  the 
pageant.  The  Queen  then  went  further  on  the 
bridge.  The  Lady  of  the  Lake  with  two  nymphs 
advanced  on  "  heaps  of  bulrushes,"  and  repeated 
some  verses  in  thanks,  after  which  "  Protheus  " 
appeared,  sitting  on  a  dolphin's  back  "  and  the 
dolphin  was  conveyed  upon  a  boate,  so  that  the 
owers  seemed  to  be  his  fynnes.  Within  the 
which  dolphin  a  consort  of  musicke  was  secretly 
placed,  the  which  sounded;  and  Protheus,  clear- 
ing his  voyce  sang  this  song  of  congratulation, 
as  well  in  the  behalf e  of  all  the  Nimphes  and 
Gods  of  the  Sea."  This  is  followed  by  another 
song,  eulogizing  the  Queen,  and  then  "  Proteus 
told  the  Queene's  Majesty  a  pleasant  tale  of  his 
deliverie,  and  the  fishes  which  he  had  in  charge." 
Such  is  a  marine  pageant,  in  this  case  a  curious 
blending  of  the  story  of  Merlin,  in  Sir  Thomas 
Mallory's  book,  with  the  heathen  gods  of  the 
ocean.  Several  similar  pieces  were  performed 
at  Kenilworth  during  the  Queen's  stay,  and  later 
this  sort  of  masque  seems  to  have  been  recog- 
nized as  legitimate  material  for  occasional  pres- 
entation by  itself.3  In  one  piece  Nereus  sings 

3  For  such   masques  see  John  Nichols'   Progresses,  etc.t 
of  Queene  Elizabeth,  and  of  King  James  I, 


100  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

strains  which  are  answered  by  Echo,  after  which 
Faunus  and  the  other  rustic  gods  present  fall  to 
fighting  with  their  green-haired  neighbors.*  An- 
other masque  included  as  one  of  the  properties 
the  figure  of  "  Nereus  holding  out  a  golden  fish 
in  a  net,"  with  the  motto  "  Industria."5  Still 
more  definite  indication  of  the  conventional  rela- 
tionship of  the  ocean  divinities  with  those  who 
owned  their  sway,  is  found  in  Anthony  Munday's 
"  Chrysanaleia,  or  The  Golden  Fishing,"6  a 
masque  which  presented  the  usual  sea-gods  to- 
gether with  a  boat  full  of  fishers  busy  drawing 
their  nets. 

Such  masques,  we  are  told,  were  given  in  the 
Italian  style,  and  it  is  not  surprising,  therefore, 
to  find  among  the  entertainments  for  Queen 
Elizabeth  at  Cowdray  (Wednesday,  Aug.  19, 
1591),  a  fisher  eclogue,  which  though  in  prose, 
bears  all  the  earmarks  of  the  species.  Her 
Majesty  was  led  to  a  pond  where  she  heard  an 
angler  uttering  a  soliloquy  on  the  deceptive  baits 
by  which  city  merchants  decoyed  the  simple,  on 
his  own  ill  luck,  and  on  the  obvious  presence  of 
something  "over  beautiful,"  which  like  sunlight 
prevented  the  finny  prey  from  coming  to  his 
hooks.  Immediately  afterwards  he  caught  sight 
of  the  Queen,  and  of  a  fisher  who  was  drawing 
his  seine  towards  her.  A  dialogue  ensued  be- 
tween the  two  fishers,  the  angler  asking  jocosely 
whether  the  other  had  caught  any  girls,  as  he 
well  might  have  done,  since  Venus  was  wave- 

4  Vol.  3,  pp.   1109   (year   1591). 

5  Vol.  2   (James),   1610,  pp.  348. 
"Vol.  3,  James,  pp.  195  (year  1616). 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  IOI 

born.  After  this  banter  he  made  a  speech  to  the 
Queen,  declaring  the  humble  honesty  of  his  trade, 
and  concluding  by  laying  at  her  feet  "  all  the 
fish  of  the  pond,"  in  the  net.  This  eclogue  con- 
tains frequent  puns,  such  as  play  on  the  words 
"  carp "  and  "  carpers,"  and  other  traits  sug- 
gestive of  the  euphuism  fashionable  at  the  time, 
evidenced  by  balanced  and  antithetical  sentences, 
with  allusions  to  "natural  history"  of  the  sort 
so  familiar  in  Lyly's  works.  In  spite  of  these 
touches,  however,  the  spirit  of  the  piece7  is  iden- 
tical with  that  of  the  conventional  fisher  pane- 
gyrics already  considered. 

Similar  use  of  sea  mythology  appears  also  in 
pastoral  plays.  In  Lyly's  "  Galatea,"  for  instance, 
Neptune  rouses  a  flood,  and  comes  near  being 
propitiated  by  the  offer  of  a  maiden  to  be  de- 
voured by  one  of  his  sea-monsters.  Again,  in 
"Love's  Metamorphosis"  (i 588-9), 8  Lyly  rep- 
resents a  husbandman,  Erisichthon,  as  being  pun- 

T  For  an  account  of  the  entertainments  at  Killingworth 
see  Nichols,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  457.  Similar  marine  masques 
are  found  on  pp.  119  (year  1591),  pp.  120  (year  1591), 
PP-  309  (year  1594),  pp.  366  (year  1594),  and  under 
James,  Vol.  3  (James),  pp.  618.  Entertainment  of  the 
Princess  at  Heidelberg.  See  also  Vol.  4  (James),  "  The 
Tryumphs  of  Peace"  (1620).  For  other  marine  masques 
see  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  "  Maid's  Tragedy,"  and 
"  The  False  One  "  ;  Ben  Jonsoni,  "  Neptune's  Triumph," 
1624,  and  "The  Fortunate  Isles,"  1626. 

8 1 581,  "A  Shadow  of  Sannazar "  is  recorded  on  the 
Stationers'  register.  What  this  was  has  not  been  dis- 
covered. Several  eclogues  are  offshoots  of  the  same 
motive — Giles  Fletcher  translated  Lucian's  dialogue  be- 
tween two  sea^-nymphs,  Doris  aind  Galatea,  concerning 
Polyphemus.  At  about  the  same  time  (1588)  appeared 
an  anonymous  translation  of  Theocritus'  idyll  of  Poly- 
phemus and  Galatea  with  five  others,  etc. 


102  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

ished  for  a  crime  by  consuming  hunger,  which 
he  can  not  satisfy.  At  length  he  is  so  hard 
pressed  for  money  that  he  sells  his  daughter, 
Protea,  to  a  merchant.  The  latter  is  about  to 
set  sail  when  the  girl  prays  to  Neptune,  whose 
paramour  she  has  been,  and  in  the  nick  of  time 
the  god  changes  her  into  an  old  fisherman.  In 
this  form,  after  some  adventures  she  returns  to 
Arcadia,  where  she  finds  Petulius,  her  lover, 
being  courted  by  a  mermaid,  with  a  looking-glass 
in  her  hands,  coquetting  in  the  waves  near  shore. 
Changing  into  the  ghost  of  Ulysses,  she  warns 
the  youth  to  avoid  the  "  syren,"  and  eventually 
Ceres  ends  all  happily  by  abolishing  the  plague 
of  hunger.9 

Such  association  of  the  fisher  with  the  con- 
ventions of  marine  mythology  is  well  illustrated 
by  Spenser's  "  Faerie  Queene."10  In  one  pas- 
sage Guyon,  rowed  over  sea  by  a  boatman,11 
encounters  all  the  most  frightful  monsters  of  the 
deep  which  Neptune  can  summon  against  him. 
In  another  place  the  poet  describes  the  sea-king 
watching  the  mother  of  the  slain  Marinell  has- 
tening to  the  place  where  her  son's  body  lies  on 
the  strand:12 

"  Great  Neptune  stoode  amazed  at  their  sight 
Whiles  on  his  broad  rownd  backe  they  softly  slid, 

"It  is  interesting  to  remark  that  while  staying  with 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden  Ben  Jonson  contemplated 
writing  a  piscatory  drama/  in  which  the  characters  were 
to  have  been  Scotch  fishers  on  the  shores  of  a  Scotch 
lake. 

10  Bks.   1-3,  comp.  1579-89,  3-6,  80^-95. 

11  Bk.  2,  canto  4. 

"  Bk.  3,  canto  7,  st.  27. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  103 

And   eke   him   selfe   mournd   at   their   mournful 

plight, 

Yet  wist  not  what  their  wailing  ment;  yet  did, 
For  great  compassion  of  their  sorrow  bid 
His  mighty  waters  to  them  buxome  bee: 
Eft  soones  the  roaring  billowes  still  abid, 
And  all  the  griesly  Monsters  of  the  See 
Stood  gaping  at  their  gate,  and  wondred  them  to 

see. 

A  teem  of  Dolphins  raunged  in  aray 
Drew  the  smooth  charett  of  sad  Cymoent : 
They  were  all  taught  by  Triton  to  obay 
To  the  long  raynes  at  her  commandement : 
As  swift  as  swallowes  on  the  waves  they  went, 
That  their  brode  flaggy  finnes  no  some  did  reare, 
Ne  bubling  rowndell  they  behinde  them  sent. 
The  rest,  of  other  fishes  drawen  were, 
Which  with  their  finny  oar  the  swelling  sea  did 
sheare." 

These  passages  and  many  similar  ones  in  the 
poem  bear  an  obvious  relationship  in  imagery  to 
the  masques  of  sea-gods,  and  exemplify  Spenser's 
evident  fondness  for  such  description.  Without 
attempting  to  go  into  any  of  these  in  detail  a 
word  more  should  be  said  here  concerning  the 
story  of  Marinell.  Fair  Florimell,  who  loves 
the  unfortunate  youth,  flees  from  a  monster : 

"It  fortuned  (high  God  did  so  ordaine) 
As  shee  arrived  on  the  roaring  shore, 
In  minde  to  leape  into  the  mighty  maine, 
A  little  bot  lay  hoving  her  before, 
In  which  there  slept  a  fisher  old  and  pore, 
The  whiles  his  nets  were  drying  on  the  sand. 
Into  the  same  shee  lept  and  with  the  ore 


104  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Did  thrust  the  shallop  from  the  floting  strand : 
So  safety  fownd  at  sea  which  she  fownd  not  at 
land." 

In  this  skiff  she  drifted  for  hours  while  the  weary 
fisher  slept : 

"  For  being  fled  into  the  fishers  bote 
For  refuge  from  the  Monsters  cruelty, 
Long  so  she  on  the  mighty  maine  did  flote, 
And  with  the  tide  drove  forward  carelessly ; 
For  th'ayre  was  milde  and  cleared  was  the  skie, 
And  all  his  windes  Dan  Aeolus  did  keepe 
From  stirring  up  their  stormy  enmity, 
As    pittying   the    while    the    fisher    did    securely 
sleepe." 

At  length  he  awoke,  and  was  astounded  to  find 
his  boat  adrift  and  the  beautiful  maiden  sit- 
ting in  it : 

"  He  marveild  more,  and  thought  he  yet  did  dreame 
Not  well  awakte;  or  that  some  extasye 
Assoted  had  his  sence,  or  dazed  was  his  eye." 

When  at  length  he  became  convinced  that  she 
was  not  a  vision  he : 

..."  felt  in  his  old  corage  new  delight 
To  gin  awake,  and  stir  his  frosen  spright: 
Tho  rudely  askte  her,  how  she  thither  came  ? 
'Ah!  (sayd  she)  father,  I  note  read  aright 
What  hard  misfortune  brought  me  to  this  same 
Yet  am  I  glad  that  here  I  now  in  safety  ame. 

'  But  thou,  good  man,  sith  far  in  sea  we  bee, 
And  the  great  waters  gin  apace  to  swell, 
That  now  no  more  we  can  the  mayn-land  see, 
Have  care,  I  pray,  to  guide  the  cock-bote  well, 


THE    ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  105 

Least  worse  on  sea  then  us  on  land  befell.' 
Thereat  th'old  man  did  nought  but  fondly  grin, 
And  saide  his  boat  the  way  could  wisely  tell; 
But  his  deceiptful  eyes  did  never  lin 
To  looke  on  her  faire  face  and  marke  her  snowy 
skin." 

Here  we  have  a  piscatory  eclogue13  interpolated 
in  the  epic,  a  companion  picture  with  the  story 
of  Calidore  and  Pastorell,  which  forms  a  pastoral 
interlude.15  It  is  noteworthy  that  Spenser  did 
not  idealize  his  fisher,  who  is  painted  in  earthy 
colors  appropriate  to  his  surroundings.  The 
"  wandring  bote,"  foul  with  scales  and  slime,  is 
called  a  "  filthy  nest,"  the  man  himself,  a  "  filthy 
wretch,"  and  he  finally  makes  a  villainous  as- 
sault on  poor  Florimell,  who  defends  herself  and 
screams  for  aid.  Very  luckily : 

"  It  fortuned,  whilest  thus  she  stiffly  strove, 
And  the  wide  sea  importuned  long  space 
With  shrilling  shrieks,  Proteus  abrode  did  rove, 
Along  the  fomy  waves  driving  his  finny  drove. 
Proteus  is  Shepheard  of  the  seas  of  yore, 
And  hath  the  charge  of  Neptune's  mighty  heard; 
An  aged  sire  with  head  all  frory  hore  .  .  . 

His  charett  swifte  in  hast  he  thither  steard, 
Which  with  a  teeme  of  scaly  Phocas  bownd 
Was   drawne   upon   the   waves   that    fomed   him 
arownd." 

13  In  Francis  Sabie's  "Pan's  Pipe,"  1595,  one  of  the 
pieces  is  "  The  Fisherman's  Tale,"  but  this  proves  to  be 
nothing  but  a  blank  verse  rendering  of  Greene's 
"  Pandosto." 

16  Bk.  6,  cantos  9,  10,  n. 


106  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

He  beat  the  wicked  monster,  dragged  him  behind 
the  chariot  over  the  waves,  and  finally  "  cast  him 
up  upon  the  shore,"  but  Florimell  he  carried 
down  to  his  hall  beneath  the  sea.  There  he  tried 
in  vain  to  win  her  love,  tried  to  frighten  her  by 
his  sudden  and  fearful  changes,  and  failing  in  all, 
threw  her  into  a  dungeon  where  she  remained  a 
prisoner  for  a  long  while.  After  treating  of 
many  other  matters,  Spenser  at  length  returns  to 
the  story  of  Florimell  in  a  later  part  of  his  poem, 
and  then  fills  two  entire  cantos  (n  and  12,  bk.  4) 
with  an  elaborate  marine,  telling  how  Marinell 
was  cured  by  the  Leach  of  the  sea-gods,  "  Try- 
phon,"  the  same  useful  divinity  who  figures  in 
two  of  Fletcher's  eclogues  in  the  character  of 
divine  healer.  Marinell  went  seeking  the  lost 
damsel,  but  for  a  long  time  was  baffled.  Mean- 
while the  marriage  of  Thames  and  Medway  was 
celebrated  at  Proteus'  hall  by  a  procession  of  all 
the  sea-gods,  river-gods,  and  nymphs  known  to 
classical  mythology  and  to  English  poetry,  the 
whole  story  concluding  happily  with  the  libera- 
tion of  Florimell  at  the  command  of  Neptune,  to 
whom  she  had  prayed,  and  with  whom  the 
mother  of  Marinell  had  interceded,  much  as 
Thetis  does  for  Achilles  in  the  Iliad. 

Evidently  Spenser  had  no  admiration  for  the 
artificial  singing  fishermen  of  humanistic  poems, 
and  took  far  more  interest  in  elaborating  the 
splendor  of  his  ocean  pageantry  than  in  describ- 
ing the  old  man,  whom  he  deliberately  makes  low 
and  vile.  At  the  same  time  this  villainous  fisher 
in  the  "Faerie  Queene"  is  a  disagreeably  real- 


THE    ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  107 

istic  personage,  and  may  well  have  been  sketched 
from  nature,  so  that  perhaps  we  should  look 
upon  his  traits  as  a  correction  of  the  fancy  pic- 
tures of  the  Italian  genre. 

We  come  now  to  the  poetry  of  Phineas  Fletcher, 
the  most  conspicuous  writer  of  fisher  idylls  in 
England.  In  view  of  what  has  been  said  about 
English  antecedents  of  his  works,  it  may  be  in- 
teresting to  note  some  of  his  sayings  about  his 
predecessors  in  pastoral  literature.  He  calls  Virgil 
the  "Arcadian  Shepherd,"  greater  than  Homer, 
who  gladly  changed  the  tongue  in  which  Troy's 
story  was  told — "  at  the  second  time  twice  better 
sung."  Secondly  he  praises  Sannazaro : 

"And  now  of  late  th'  Italian  fisher-swain 
Sits  on  the  shore  to  watch  his  trembling  line, 
There  teaches  rocks  and  prouder  seas  to  plain 
By  Nesis  fair,  and  fairer  Mergiline: 
Whilst  his  thin  net  upon  his  oars  entwin'd, 
With  wanton  strife  catches  the  sun  and  wind; 
Which    still    do    slip    away,    and    still    remain 
behind." 

In  still  another  place  he  declares : 

17 "  Two  shepherds  most  I  love,  and  do  adore, 

That  Mantuan  swain,  who  chang'd  his  slender 

reed, 
To  th'  shrill  trumpet's  voice,  and  war's  loud 

roar, 

From  Corydon  to  Turnus  daring  deed; 
And  next  our  home-bred  Colin,  us  inspiring 

18 "The  Purple  Island"  Canto  i,  sts.  11-15. 

"Ec.  6,  sts.  51  and  58.  In  Pise.  ec.  i,  he  expresses 
admiration  for  his  father's  Latin  pieces,  and  there  are 
many  other  passages  in  which  he  praises  Spenser. 


I08  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Their  steps  not  following  close,  but  far,  admir- 
ing: 

To  lackey  one  of  these,  is  all  my  pride's  aspir- 
ing!" 

One  of  these  "  swains  "  he  did  "  lackey "  so 
faithfully  as  to  earn  the  appellation  "  The  Spen- 
ser of  his  age,"  but  at  the  same  time  he  chose  to 
retain  the  Sannazarian  fisher  conventions.  By 
1603,  a  year  before  graduating  from  Cambridge, 
Fletcher  was  known  as  the  author  of  Latin 
poems,  among  them,  presumably,  two  early  pis- 
catory eclogues.  In  one  the  scene  is  a  haven 
with  caverns  sheltered  from  the  ocean  by  beetling 
cliffs,  unmistakably  suggestive  of  those  about  the 
bay  in  Africa  where  Aeneas  landed  after  the 
tempest.  There  Myrtilus  had  come,  bewailing 
his  unrequited  affection,  and  lay  flat  in  the  green 
sedge  by  his  skiff,  while  throngs  of  pitying 
nereids  strove  to  soothe  his  violent  grief.  His 
reproaches,  sung  to  Daphne,  are  imitated  almost 
line  for  line  from  Sannazaro's  "  Galatea,"  and 
occasional  bits  are  borrowed  from  his  other  ec- 
logues. Two  touches  not  found  in  Sannazaro 
may  have  been  suggested  by  Bernardes'  "  The 
Fisher's  Lament."  In  the  Spanish  eclogue,19  as 
in  Fletcher's,  the  singer  lies  beside  his  dory,  and 
in  both  pieces  the  singers  tell  how  the  force  of 
their  desperate  love  caused  them  to  tumble  into 
the  sea,  from  which  they  were  rescued  by  dol- 
phins that  had  been  charmed  by  their  sweet  voices. 
Such  resemblances  may  be  coincidental,  but  it  is 

19  Canioes'  and1  Bernarde's  poems  were  often  published 
together  as  by  Camoes. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  109 

at  least  significant  that  Fletcher's  other  Latin 
fisher  eclogue  is  strikingly  like  Camoes'  "  Song 
Contest,"  both  poems  being  trials  of  skill  held 
before  admiring  fisher  girls  and  shepherdesses, 
and  the  songs  in  both  presenting,  side  by  side, 
imitation  of  Virgil's  singing  match  with  that  by 
Sannazaro.  That  Fletcher  was  enough  of  a  lin- 
guist to  read  Camoes  is  of  course  beyond  doubt, 
for  like  his  father,  he  was  a  distinguished  scholar. 
The  exact  dates  of  composition  remain  uncer- 
tain, but  the  English  eclogues  were  written  after 
1610,  and  we  may  safely  assign  the  Latin  to  an 
earlier  period.  This  strikes  the  reader  as  prob- 
able when  he  observes  that  the  Latin  pieces  fol- 
low their  sources  with  the  close  manner  of  imita- 
tion usual  in  a  writer's  early  poems,  and  that  in 
some  cases  the  English  eclogues  embody  elabora- 
tions of  the  Latin.  Moreover,  it  can  be  shown 
that  the  Latin  pastorals  were  written  before  the 
English,  by  an  examination  of  these  verses  ad- 
dressed by  Fletcher  to  a  friend : 

"  To  my  beloved  Thenot  in  answer  of  his  verse." 
But  if  my  Thenot  love  my  humble  vein, 
Too  lowly  vein — ne'er  let  him  Colin  call  me; 
He,  while  he  was,  was  (ah!)  the  choicest  swain, 
That  ever  grac'd  a  reed:  what  e're  befall  me, 
Or  Myrtil, — so  'fore  Fusca  fair  did  thrall  me, 
Most  was  I  knowne — or  now  poore  Thyrsil  name 

me, 
Thirsil,  for  so  my  Fusca  pleases  frame  me." 

Evidently  the  friend,  to  flatter  the  poet,  has  called 
him  "  Colin  "  (*.  e.,  Spenser) .  He  replies  that  he 
is  unworthy  the  name,  and  that  he  has  given  up 


HO  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

his  earlier  appellation,  "Myrtilus,"  from  which 
it  appears  that  the  "  Myrtilus  "  of  the  two  Latin 
piscatories  is  the  poet  himself.  A  third  Latin 
piece,  later  expanded  in  two  of  the  English  pis- 
catories, is  called  "  Fusca  Ecloga,"  and  in  this  the 
poet,  calling  himself  "  Thyrsilis,"  sings  of  his 
love  for  the  maiden,  "  Fusca."  This  shows  that 
the  two  Latin  poems  were  written  earlier  than 
the  "  Fusca,"  and  as  in  the  English  poems  and 
in  the  "Purple  Island"  the  poet  styles  himself 
"Thyrsilis,"21  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  they  are 
of  later  composition.  Whatever  the  exact  dates 
of  composition  may  have  been,  Fletcher's  Latin 

ai  His  brother  Giles  calls  him  "  The  Kentish  Lad1,  young 
Thyrsilis,"  in  "Christ's  Victorie"  (pub.  1610).  Phineas 
also  styles  himself  Thyrsilis  in  "  To  Mr.  Jo.  Tomkins," 
"To  Thomalin,"  and  "To  Master  W.  C."  (Wm.  Court- 
hope?).  In  the  latter  poem  Phineas  writes  from  Cam- 
bridge urging  his  friend  to  return  from  Little  Haddam. 
where  he  has  been  too  much  taken  up  with  "  the  nymphs." 
Art:  Cambridge  he  says  they  may  hear  "  the  Mantuan 
shepherd's  complaint  of  Alexis,  or  ThyrsiFs  moan,  and 
Fusca's  cruelty : 

"  Fusca  his  care,  but  careless  enemie : 
Hope  oft  he  sees  shine  in  her  humble  eye." 

Probably  these  poems  were  composed  before  1610,  and 
the  English  piscatories  were  begun  shortly  after  that  date. 
At  any  rate  the  Fusca  affair  has  been  replaced  by  another 
more  serious  in  the  English  piscatories,  and  the  second  of 
these  eclogues  mentions  the  death  of  Phineas'  father,  which 
occurred  in  1610,  as  a  recent  occurrence. 

From  matter  contained  in  the  dedication  of  the  Purple 
Island  to  Edward  Benlowes  it  is  certain'  that  it  was 
Fletcher's  last  work.  In  it  he  cadis  his  earlier  poems 
"  raw  essays  of  my  very  unripe  years,  and  almost  child- 
hood," yet  the  "  Purple  Island "  must  have  been  begun, 
at  least,  not  long  after  1610,  since  it  praises  "Christ's 
Victorie"  as  a  work  just  completed,  and  that  poem  ap- 
peared in  1610. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  III 

eclogues  were  the  work  of  his  apprentice  hand, 
written  under  the  influence  of  Virgil  and  Sanna- 
zaro,  and  flung  carelessly  aside  to  give  place  to 
the  English  "  Piscatorie  Eclogs,"22  a  poem  so 
closely  imitated  from  Spenser's  Shepherds  Cal- 
ender that  it  may  almost  be  called  a  fisher  adap- 
tation of  the  first  great  English  pastoral. 

Fletcher's  calendar  is  a  hybrid  form,  bearing 
much  the  same  relationship  to  Spenser's  poetry 
as  Sannazaro's  pastorals  do  to  Virgil's.  In  all 
the  piscatories  imagery,  settings  and  general  con- 
ventions are  borrowed  directly  from  Sannazaro, 
wherever  such  borrowing  makes  it  feasible  for 
the  poet  to  imitate  Spenserian  effects  in  their 
equivalent  marine  phraseology.  This  method  is 
consistently  followed  throughout,  just  as  we  have 
seen  it  done  in  Sannazaro's  imitations  of  Virgil. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  account  for  such  fondness 
for  the  conventions  of  fisher  pastoral.  In  his 
"Angler"  Izaak  Walton  declares  that  Fletcher 
was  a  skillful  angler  and  a  very  pious  man,  and 
it  is  likely  that  he  was  actuated  by  the  old  feeling 
that  fishing  is  a  godly  craft.  At  any  rate  there 
can  be  no  question  that  he  adopted  the  piscatory 
form  largely  because  of  its  adaptability  to  reli- 
gious allegory  of  a  type  constantly  stressed  in 
his  eclogues,  and  well  illustrated  by  the  following 
lines  from  his  "  Apollyonists  " : 

"  Those  fisher-swaynes,  whom  by  full  Jordan's  wave 
The  Sea's  great  Soveraigne  His  art  had  taught, 
To  still  loud  stormes  when  winds  and  waters  rave, 
To  sink  their  laden  boats  with  heavenly  fraught; 
To  free  the  fish  with  nets,  with  hooks  to  save : 

82  Pub.  London,  1633. 


112  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

For  while  the   fish  they  catch,  themselves  were 

caught : 

And  as  the  scaly  nation  they  invade, 
Were  snar'd  themselves.     Ah !  much  more  blessed 

trade 
That  of   free  fisher-swaines  were   captive  fishes 

made !  " 

This  conception  of  the  sacred  character  of 
fishing  derived  from  the  Bible,  and  apparently  of 
some  influence  in  Italian  and  French  piscatory 
literature,  finds  its  most  concrete  expression  in 
the  debate  between  an  angler,  a  huntsman  and  a 
falconer  which  forms  the  introduction  to  Izaak 
Walton's  famous  book.  The  angler's  argument 
is  too  long  to  quote  here  in  full,  but  it  is  largely 
supported  by  Holy  Writ.  "  It  is  observable," 
says  Piscator,  "  that  it  was  our  Saviour's  will, 
that  these  our  four  Fishermen  should  have  a 
priority  of  nomination  in  the  catalogue  of  his 
Twelve  Apostles,  ...  as  namely,  first  St.  Peter, 
St.  Andrew,  St.  James,  and  St.  John,  and  then  the 
rest  in  their  order."  Again,  "  It  is  to  be  believed 
that  all  the  other  Apostles,  after  they  betook 
themselves  to  follow  Christ,  betook  themselves 
to  be  Fishermen  too;  for  it  is  certain  that  the 
greater  number  of  them  were  found  together  by 
Jesus  after  his  Resurrection,  as  it  is  recorded  in 
the  twenty-first  chapter  of  St.  John's  Gospel, 

5,  3,  4-" 
As  we  find  both  Fletcher  and  Milton  influenced 

by  such  scenes23  from  the  Bible,  it  may  be  well 

13  For  this  conception  of  the  sacred  nature  of  fishing  see 
also  O.  F.  Emerson.  "  Some  of  Chaucer's  Lines  on  the 
Monk,"  Mod.  Phil.,  vol.  I.,  1903-4,  pp.  105.  See  also 
"  The  Golden  Fishing  "  in  John  Nichols'  "  The  Progresses 
of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  of  King  James." 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  I  13 

to  quote  here  a  part  of  the  passage  referred  to 
by  Walton,  which  runs  as  follows: 

"After  these  things  Jesus  shewed  himself  again 
to  the  disciples  at  the  sea  of  Tiberias;  and  on  this 
wise  shewed  he  himself.  There  were  together 
Simon  Peter,  and  Thomas  called  Didymus,  and 
Nathaniel  of  Cana  in  Galilee,  and  the  sons  of 
Zebedee,  and  two  other  of  his  disciples. 

Simon  Peter  saith  unto  them,  I  go  a  fishing. 
They  say  unto  him,  We  also  go  with  thee.  They 
went  forth,  and  entered  into  a  ship  immediately; 
and  that  night  they  caught  nothing.  But  when  the 
morning  was  come,  Jesus  stood  on  the  shore ;  but 
the  disciples  knew  not  that  it  was  Jesus.  Then 
Jesus  saith  unto  them,  Children  have  ye  any  meat? 
They  answered  him,  No.  And  he  said  unto  them, 
Cast  the  net  on  the  right  side  of  the  ship,  and  ye 
shall  find.  They  cast  therefore,  and  now  they  were 
not  able  to  draw  it  for  the  multitude  of  fishes. 
Therefore  that  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved  saith  unto 
Peter,  It  is  the  Lord. 

Now  when  Simon  Peter  heard  that  it  was  the 
Lord,  he  girt  his  fisher's  coat  unto  him  (for  he  was 
naked),  and  did  cast  himself  into  the  sea.  And  the 
other  disciples  came  in  a  little  ship  (for  they  were 
not  far  from  land,  but  as  it  were  two  hundred 
cubits),  dragging  the  net  with  fishes.  As  soon  as 
they  saw  they  were  come  to  land  they  saw  a  fire 
of  coals  there,  and  fish  laid  thereon,  and  bread. 

Jesus  saith  unto  them,  Bring  of  the  fish  which 
you  have  now  caught.  Simon  Peter  went  up,  and 
drew  the  net  to  land  full  of  great  fishes,  a  hundred 
and  fifty  and  three :  and  for  all  there  were  so  many, 
yet  was  not  the  net  broken.  Jesus  saith  unto  them, 
Come  and  dine.  And  none  of  the  disciples  durst 
ask  him  Who  art  thou  ?  knowing  it  was  the  Lord. 


114  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

There  can  be  no  question  that  this  idyllic  pic- 
ture excels  in  simplicity  even  the  analogous  ones 
in  the  poems  of  Theocritus.  Christ  as  Shepherd 
figures  largely  in  the  symbolism  of  renaissance 
pastoral  tradition;  in  Fletcher's  poetry  and  in 
Milton's  we  find  a  companion  figure,  Christ  the 
fisherman. 

It  should  be  remembered,  also,  that  simulta- 
neous imitation  of  Spenser  and  of  Sannazaro  did 
not  appear  at  all  a  complex  matter  to  Fletcher, 
and  he  may  have  been  encouraged  in  the  concep- 
tion by  the  fact  that  some  characteristics  of  the 
famous  humanist's  piscatories  resemble  those  of 
the  Shepherds  Calender.  In  both  works  there 
is  an  undertone  of  sorrow  due  to  unrequited  love, 
and  to  disappointed  ambition,  that  gives  a  slight 
autobiographical  unity  to  the  poems,  and  as  it 
were,  pitches  all  in  a  minor  key.  Both  poets  fol- 
lowed the  Virgilian  types  of  song,  both  composed 
panegyrics  of  royal  personages,  and  both  were 
eminently  patriotic. 

Turning  now  to  the  English  piscatory  calendar 
we  find  that  just  as  in  Spenser's  work  each  poem 
stands  for  a  month.  Fletcher  begins  with  "  Hal- 
cyon Days"  (the  winter  solstice,  Dec.  15-29)  as 
forming  a  fitting  commencement  to  the  fisher 
year: 

"  It  was  the  time  when  faithful  Halcyone, 
Once  more  enjoying  new-liv'd  Ceyx'  bed, 
Had  left  her  young  birds  to  the  wavering  Sea, 
Bidding  him  calm  his  proud  white-curled  head, 
And  change  his  mountains  to  a  champian  lea; 
The  time  when  gentle  Flora's  lover  reigns, 
Soft  creeping  all  along  green  Neptunes  smoothest 
plains." 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  1 15 

The  poems  are  not,  as  in  their  model,  actually 
named  for  months,  but  in  every  one  the  seasonal 
advance  is  more  or  less  definitely  indicated  by  a 
descriptive  passage. 

The  subject  matter  of  Spenser's  Calender  is 
freely  borrowed  by  Fletcher.  Spenser's  Puritan 
leanings,  evidenced  by  his  strictures  against  high 
prelates  in  the  May  and  September  eclogues,  and 
those  directed  against  proud  and  ambitious  pas- 
tors, with  commendation  of  good  ones  in  the  July, 
were  particularly  acceptable  to  his  disciple.  All 
these  motives  find  their  expression  in  a  conversa- 
tion between  two  of  Fletcher's  fishermen  (Ec- 
logue IV)  and  thus  the  materials  of  Mantuan's 
eclogues,  on  which  Spenser  had  drawn,  first  found 
their  way  into  the  English  piscatory.24  Spenser's 
eclogues  of  moral  or  religious  satire,  however, 
are  but  loosely  connected  with  the  general  scheme, 
and  exemplify  the  poet's  most  labored  efforts  to 
employ  archaic  diction,  while  Fletcher's  criticisms 
are  put  into  the  mouths  of  his  own  father  (Thel- 
gon25)  and  of  a  friend  (Chromis26).  As  Thel- 
gon's  troubles  form  the  burden  of  two  other 
poems,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  poet  makes  no 
attempt  to  set  this  religious  eclogue  apart,  and 
its  vocabulary  and  metre  are  not  distinctive,  as 
in  Spenser.  Since  almost  every  line  in  Fletcher's 
poetry  is  phrased  in  the  Spenserian  manner,  a 
few  quotations  will  suffice  to  give  the  general 
effect  of  his  poem.  Thelgon  rebukes  Chromis 

24  July,  cf.  Mantuan  7,  8,  and  September  Mantuan  9. 
2SSaTin.,  5. 
28Sann.,   3. 


Il6  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

for  grieving  at  being  surrounded  by  the  same  evil 
conditions  that  Christ  had  to  face,  reminding  him 
that  "  The  Prince  of  fishers  thousand  tortures 
rent,"  just  as  in  the  July  eclogue  of  Spenser's 
Calender  Thomalin  tells  Morrell  that  Christ,  "  A 
shepherd  great,"  saved  'his  "  flocke  .  .  .  with 
shepherd  great " : 

"...  bought  his  flocke  so  deare, 
And  then  did  save  with  bloudy  sweat 
From  Wolves  that  would  them  teare." 

In  like  manner  Spenser's  Thomalin  recalls  the 
piety  of  the  shepherds  of  old,  and  contrasts  it 
with  the  impiety  of  his  day,  a  passage  adapted  in 
these  words  of  the  fisher  Thelgon : 

"  Chromis,  'how  many  fishers  dost  thou  know 
That  rule  their  boats  and  use  their  nets  aright? 
That  neither  winde  nor  time  nor  tide,  foreslow  ? 
Such    some   have   been   but    (ah!)    by   tempests' 
spite 

Their  boats  are  lost;  while  we  may  sit  and  moan, 
That  few  were  such,  and  now  those  few  are  none." 

"  Instead  of  these  a  crue  of  idle  grooms, 
Idle  and  bold,  that  never  saw  the  Seas, 
Fearlesse   succeed,   and  fill   their  empty   rooms " 

"  Some  stretching  in  their  boats,  supinely  sleep, 
Seasons  in  vaine  recall'd,  and  windes  neglecting: 
Others  their  hooks  and  baits  in  poison  steep, 
Neptune  himself  with  dreadful  drugges  infecting 
The  fish  their  life  and  death  together  drink, 
And  dead  pollute  the  seas  with  venom'd  stink. 

Some  teach  to  work,  but  have  no  hands  to  row : 
Some  will  be  eyes,  but  have  no  light  to  see: 
Some  will  be  guides,  but  have  no  feet  to  go : 


THE    ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  Uj 

Some  deaf,  yet  eares;  some  dumbe,  yet  tongues 

will  be : 
Dumbe,    deafe,    lame,    blinde,    and   maim'd;    yet 

fishers  all : 
Fit  for  no  use,  but  store  an  hospital." 

This  entire  invective  was  later  paraphrased  by 
Fletcher  in  his  "  Apollyonists,"  and  just  as  Mil- 
ton's "  Paradise  Lost "  shows  traces  of  the  influ- 
ence of  this  work,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that 
the  noble  lines  in  Lycidas  on  the  corruption  of 
the  clergy  owe  suggestions  to  the  imagery  of 
Fletcher's  epic.  For  instance,  evil  fishers  "  steal " 
into  the  ship  by  night,  know  nothing  of  the  use 
of  the  "  hook,"  are  blind,  and  care  for  nothing 
but  their  own  gain.  Moreover,  both  the  sheep  in 
Lycidas  and  the  fish  in  the  "Apollyonists"  are 
poisoned  by  the  bad  ministration  that  they  re- 
ceive; both  rot,  and  both  spread  contagion.  Yet 
though  Milton  may  have  borrowed  a  hint  or  so 
from  Fletcher,  he  was  far  too  fond  of  the  ortho- 
dox in  pastoralism  to  think  of  adopting  the  pisca- 
tory form,  and  he  may  well  have  smiled  at  lines 
like  this — "  Some  snorting  in  their  hulks  supinely 
sleep."  Neither  he  nor  Spenser  attempted  such 
open  attacks  on  the  clergy  as  Fletcher's  words  on 
the  Pope  as  the  "  Fisher,"  who  by  Tiber's  banks : 

"...  casts  to  enlarge  his  See 

His  ship — even  then  too  great — with  stollen  plankes 
Lengthening,  he  makes  a  monstrous  argosie  " — 

lines  which  served  to  embroil  the  poet  in  a  re- 
ligious controversy,  almost  at  once. 

Though  Fletcher  wrote  this  theological  poem 


Il8  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

with  much  zest,  he  stated  elsewhere  that  he  loved 
best  in  Virgil  Corydon's  song,  and  in  Spenser's 
pastorals,  the  lament  of  Colin  at  fair  Rosalind's 
cruelty  (Jan.  EC.),  adding: 

"  Well  may  I  after  look,  but  follow  all  in  vain." 

He  made  an  attempt  to  "  follow  "  in  three  of  his 
eclogues,  February,  April,  and  May.  Under  guise 
of  the  fisher  Myrtilus  the  poet  utters  a  com- 
plaint to  heartless  Coelia,  obviously  modeled  on 
Colin's.  The  swain — "A  shepeheards  boye,  (no 
better  doe  him  call,)  "begins  with  this  apostrophe: 

"  Ye  Gods  of  love,  that  pitie  lovers  payne, 
(If  any  gods  the  paine  of  lovers  pitie) 
Looke  from  above,  where  you  in  joyes  remaine, 
And  bowe  your  eares  unto  my  dolef ull  dittie : 
And,  Pan,  thou  s'hepheards  God  that  once  didst 

love, 
Pitie  the  paines  that  thou  thyself  didst  prove." 

Myrtilus,  "A  Fisher-lad"  (no  higher  dares  he 
look) ,  commences  his  plaint  in  these  words : 

"  You  sea-born  maids  that  in  the  Ocean  reigne, 
(If  in  your  courts  is  known  Love's  matchlesse 

power,) 

Kindling  his  fire  in  your  cold  watry  bower 
Learn  by  your  own  to  pitie  others  paine, 
Tryphon,  that  knowst  a  thousand  herbs  in  vain, 
But  know'st  not  one  to  cure  a  love-sick  heart, 
See  here  a  wound  that  farre  outgoes  thy  art." 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  piscatory  Fletcher 
retains  even  the  parentheses  of  his  model.  The 
swain  sees  in  the  dreary  aspect  of  nature  the  re- 
flection of  his  sufferings : 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  1 19 

"  Thou  barrein  ground,  whome  winters  wrath  hath 

wasted, 

Art  made  a  myrrhour  to  behold  my  plight : 
Whilome  thy  fresh  spring  flowrd,  and  after  hasted 
Thy  sommer  prowde,  with  Daffadillies  dight;" 

Exactly  the  same  sort  of  figure  is  found  in  the 
fisher's  exclamation: 

"  How  well,  fair  Thetis,  in  thy  glass  I  see, 
As  in  a  crystal,  all  my  raging  pains ! 
Late  thy  green  fields  slept  in  their  even  plains, 
While  smiling  heav'ns  spread  round  a  canopie." 

Colin's  apostrophe  to  the  trees  with  its  touch  of 
pathetic  fallacy: 

"  You  naked  trees,  whose  shady  leaves  are  lost, 
Wherein  the  byrds  were  wont  to  build  their  bowre, 
And  now  are  clothed  with  mosse  and  hoary  frost, 
Instede   of   bloosmes,   wherewith  your   buds   did 

flowre ; 
I   see  your  teares  that   from  your  boughes  doe 

raine, 
Whose  drops  in  drery  Ysicles  remaine  .  .  ." 

finds  a  parallel  in  Myrtilus'  apostrophe  to  the 
seas: 

"  Your   stately    Seas    (perhaps    with    Love's    fire) 

glow, 

And  over-seeth  their  banks  with  springing  tide ; 
Mustring  their  white-plum'd  waves   with   lordly 

pride, 

They  soon  retire,  and  lay  their  curl'd  heads  low ; 
So  sinking  in  themselves  they  backward  go. 
But  in  my  breast  full  seas  of  grief  remain, 
Which  ever  flow  and  never  ebbe  again." 


120  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Colin  says  of  his  own  heart : 

"  Such  rage  as  winters  reigneth  in  my  heart, 
My  life-blood  friesing  with  unkindly  cold."- 

a  passage  rendered  by  the  fisherman : 

"  Such  cruel  stormes  my  restless  heart  command : 
Late  thousand  joyes  securely  lodged  there." 

From  this  point  on  the  parallel  ceases  to  hold, 
Fletcher  elaborating  the  themes  of  his  misery,  of 
Coelia's  beauty,  and  of  her  skill  in  singing.  A 
touch  borrowed  from  the  earlier  Latin  "  Myrti- 
lus"  is  the  fisher's  declaration  that  he  does  not 
dare  leap  into  the  sea  to  cure  his  love  for  fear 
the  flames  of  his  passion  may  fire  the  deep.  At 
the  end  of  the  song  Myrtilus  fainted — "  So  down 
he  swooning  sinks;  nor  can  remove,"  just  as  we 
read  of  Colin — "  So  broke  his  oaten  pipe,  and 
downe  dyd  lye." 

Fletcher's  second  love  poem,  the  April  eclogue, 
is  not  closely  imitated  from  the  Calender,  but 
forms  a  companion  piece  with  Spenser's  June,  in 
which  Colin  tells  Hobbinoll  his  ill  fortune  in  love, 
and  is  comforted  by  him.  Just  so  a  fisher  con- 
fides his  feelings  to  a  friend,  and  the  opening  lines 
show  that  the  idyll  is  autobiographical,  and  that 
it  was  probably  finished  after  the  poet  left  the 
university,  about  i6i6:27 

"  The  well  known  fisher-boy,  that  late  his  name, 
And  place,  and  (ah  for  pity!)  mirth  had  changed; 
Which    from    the    Muses'    spring    and    Churlish 
Chame 

27  See  also  ec.  6  for  same  idea. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  121 

Was  fled,  (his  glory  late,  but  now  his  shame: 
For  he  with  spite  the  gentle  boy  estranged) 
Now  'long  the  T>ent  with  his  new-fellows  ranged : 
There  Damon  (friendly  Damon)  met  the  boy, 
Where  lordly  Trent  kisses  the  Darwin  coy, 
Bathing  his  liquid  streams  in  lovers'  meeting  joy." 

"Algon,"  for  so  Fletcher  now  styles  himself,  de- 
scribes his  symptoms,  and  Damon  immediately 
diagnoses  the  case  as  one  of  love,  just  as  happens 
in  the  Latin  "  Fusca  Ecloga."  Then  the  fisher 
girl  Nicaea  appears,  armed  with  hook  and  line, 
and  rowing  in  a  skiff.  Algon's  evident  confu- 
sion shows  Damon  that  she  is  the  cause  of  the 
trouble,  and  so  he  accosts  her,  and  begins  to 
plead  for  Algon,  whereupon  that  youth,  plucking 
up  heart,  also  urges  his  suit.  A  subtile  debate 
follows,  but  eventually  the  damsel  is  persuaded 
to  grant  her  love  to  the  suffering  fisher,  a  suc- 
cessful conclusion  that  affords  a  striking  contrast 
with  Colin's  quiet  despair. 

The  remaining  idyll  of  love,  the  May,  evidently 
records  how  Fletcher's  friend  Tomkins,  later  or- 
ganist of  St.  Paul's,  confided  to  him  an  affair 
which  he  had  at  college.  In  piscatory  terms : 

"  A  fisher-Boy  that  never  knew  his  peer 
In  daintie  songs — the  gentle  Thomalin, 
With  folded  arms,  deep  sighs,  and  heavy  cheer 
Where  hundred  Nymphs,  and  hundred  Muses  inne 
Sunk  down  by  Chamus  brinks ;  with  him  his  deare, 
Deare  Thyrsil  lay  .  .  ." 

Thyrsil  urges  Thomalin  to  tell  the  cause  of  his 
sorrow,  while; 


122  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

"  Under  a  sprouting  vine  they  carelesse  lie, 
Whose  tender  leaves  bit  with  the  Eastern  blast, 
But  now  were  born,  and  now  begin  to  die." 

The  afflicted  fisher  replies : 

"  Thyrsil,  my  joyous  Spring  is  blasted  quite, 
And  Winter-storms   prevent   the   Summer's   ray : 
All  as  this  vine,  whose  green  the  Eastern  spite 
Hath  di'd  to  black,  his  catching  arms  decay, 
And  letting  go  their  hold  for  want  of  might, 
Mar'l  Winter  comes  so  soon,  in  first  of  May." 

Then  Thomalin  enumerates  the  emotions  which 
he  has  felt  ever  since  seeing  "  fair  Melite  dancing 
on  the  golden  sand,"  and  Thyrsil,  just  as  does 
Damon  in  the  preceding  poem,  at  once  declares 
that  his  friend  is  a  victim  of  the  gentle  passion, 
remarking : 

"  Thomalin,  too  well  those  bitter-sweets  I  know, 
Since  fair  Nicaea  bred  my  pleasing  smart." 

He  then  proceeds  to  reason  with  his  friend,  try- 
ing to  prove  that  moderation  in  love  is  the  desir- 
able thing,28  and  telling  how  Tryphon,29  leech  of 
the  sea-gods,  once  calmed  the  excess  of  his  pas- 
sion by: 

"A  salve  of  soveraigne  and  strange  confection 
Nepenthe  mixt  with  rue  and  herb-de-grace." 

A  much  more  striking  imitation  of  Spenser 
than  the  last  two  is  Fletcher's  December  eclogue, 
partly  a  piscatory  adaptation  of  the  same  month 
in  the  Shepherds  Calender.  The  rustic  Colin 

28  Cf.  Mantuan  ec.  i. 

29  Leech  from  Spenser. 


THE    ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  123 

utters  a  complaint  to  Pan  in  which  he  gives  a 
picture  of  the  four  seasons  of  his  long  life,  with 
the  occupations  of  each,  the  baneful  effects  of 
his  ill  success  in  love,  and  his  final  despair.  Colin 
is  of  course  Spenser's  name  for  himself,  and  as 
he  wrote  the  poem  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven, 
the  melancholy  retrospect  was  in  large  part  a 
fiction.  Instead  of  following  this  affectation, 
Fletcher  puts  his  complaint  into  the  mouth  of  his 
father  (the  fisher  "Thelgon"),  who  gives  a  mel- 
ancholy account  of  his  career.  The  parallel  with 
Colin's  experiences  is  very  close  in  the  first  part 
of  the  poem,  the  shepherd's  apostrophe  to  Pan 
being  replaced  by  invocation  of  the  nereids,  and 
the  pastoral  sports  of  youth,  gathering  nuts,  and 
hunting  the  hare  or  the  stag,  being  neatly  changed 
to  spreading  the  sail,  folding  the  net,  or  setting 
fish  traps  in  the  Thames  near  Eton.  Very  early 
Colin  devoted  himself  to  song: 

"  And  for  I  was  in  thilke  same  looser  yeares 
(Whether  the  Muses  so  wrought  me  from  my  birth, 
Or  I  too  much  beleeved  my  shepherd  peeres,) 
Somedele  ybent  to  song  and  musicks  mirth." 

It  was  the  same  way  with  Thelgon : 

"  And  whether  nature,  joyn'd  with  art,  had  wrought 

me 

0r  I  too  much  beleev'd  the  fishers'  praise; 
Or  whether  Phoebus  self,  or  Muses  taught  me, 
Too  much  enclin'd  to  verse,  and  musick-playes ;  " 

Flattery  soon  made  Colin  ambitious : 

"  'Fro  thence  I  durst  in  derring-doe  compare 
With    shep'heards    swayne    what    ever    fedde    in 
field;" 


124  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

So  of  Thelgon : 

"  So  that  with  Limnus  and  with  Belgio 
I  durst  to  challenge  all  my  fisher-peers." 

In  spite  of  the  obvious  parallel  that  may  be  traced 
between  the  poems,  the  allusions  in  Fletcher's 
are  much  more  definite  than  those  in  Spenser. 
Thus  near  Eton  Thelgon  learned  from  Aquadune 
the  art  of  an  angler,  after  which  he  lived  among 
fisher  boys — "  That  by  learn'd  Chamus  banks  did 
spend  their  youthful  yeares."  At  Cambridge  he 
composed  the  Latin  eclogues  which  have  been 
spoken  of: 

"  I  sang  sad  Telethusa's  frustrate  plaint, 
And   rustic   Daphnis   wrong,   and   magick's   vain 

restraint : 

And  then  appeased  young  Myrtilus,  repining 
At  general  contempt  of  shepherd's  life." 

He  speaks  of  his  other  productions,  tells  how  he 
roused  the  jealousy  of  dark  "Janus,"  and  finally 
was  taken  by  a  "  shepherd  great "  to  the  court  of 
Elizabeth,  whom  he  terms : 

"  Fair  Basilissa,  fairest  maid  among 
The    nymphs     that    white-cliffe     Albion's     forests 
grace ! " 

The  Queen  sent  him  on  diplomatic  missions,  to 
Germany,  Russia,  and  Scotland,  but  some  enemy 
gained  all  the  credit  for  Thelgon's  work,  and  even 
"  the  great  Amyntas,"  a  friend  whom  he  loved  in 
"  Caledonia,"  forsook  him  for  "  Napean  nymphs." 
The  rest  of  the  poem  is  a  complaint  addressed  to 
Amyntas,  and  imitated  from  Colin's  complaint  to 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  125 

Rosalind  in  Spenser's  January.  The  conclusion 
of  Thelgon's  plaint: 

"  So  up  he  rose,  and  launch't  into  the  deep ; 
Dividing  with  his  oare  the  surging  main, 
Which  dropping  seem'd  with  teares  his  case  to 
weep  " — 

is  almost  a  translation  of  the  corresponding  lines 
at  the  end  of  Fletcher's  Latin  "  Myrtilus  "  ren- 
dered as  much  as  possible  like  the  close  of  Colin's 
song  :31 

"  The  pensive  boy,  halfe  in  despight, 
Arose,  and  homeward  drove  his  sonned  sheepe, 
Whose  hanging  heads  seeme  his  carefull  case  to 
wepe." 

It  should  be  added  that  Fletcher  owes  such  sea- 
sonal description  as  he  here  employs  indirectly  to 
Marot,  whose  "  Eglogue  au  Roy  "  was  Spenser's 
model  for  the  type  of  allegory  employed. 

Fletcher's  January  supplements  Thelgon's  com- 
plaint, the  fisher  Myrtilus,  at  the  suggestion  of 
Dorus,  repeating  the  songs  sung  by  Thyrsilis 
(Fletcher)  to  Thomalin  (Tomkins)  with  their 
conversation  relative  to  Thyrsil's  leaving  Cam- 
bridge. The  latter  repeats  the  story  of  his  father's 
diplomatic  expeditions,  and  tells  how  "  Chame  " 
twice  gave  him  a  position  (a  "painted  boat"), 
and  each  time  unjustly  deprived  him  of  it  to 
honor  "  Gripus  " — 

"The  basest  and  most  dung-hill  swain 
That  ever  drew  a  net  or  fisht  in  fruitfull  main." 

81  Jan.  ec. 


126  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Now  "  Chame  "  has  treated  Phineas  in  the  same 
outrageous  manner: 

"  His  stubborn  hands  my  net  hath  broken  quite : 
My  fish — the  guerdon  of  my  toil  and  pain — 
He  causelesse  seaz'd,  and  with  ungratefull  spite 
Bestow'd  upon  a  lesse  deserving  swain: 
The  cost  and  labour  mine,  his  all  the  gain. 
My  boat  he's  broke;  my  oares  crackt  and  gone: 
Nought  ha's  he  left  me,  but  my  pipe  alone, 
Which  with  his  sadder  notes  may  help  his  master 
moan." 

In  disgust  he  declares  he  will  go  away,  and 
Thomalin  replies : 

"  Ah  foolish  Chame !  who  now  in  Thyrsil's  stead 
Shall    chant    thy    praise,    since    Thelgon's   lately 
dead?"82 

Fletcher's  last  lines  on  his  father  are  among  his 
best: 

"  Thomalin,  mourn  not  for  him :  he's  sweetly  sleep- 
ing 

In  Neptune's  court,  whom  here  he  sought  to  please, 
While  humming  rivers  by  his  cabin  creeping, 
Rock  soft  his  slumbering  thoughts  in  quiet  ease." 

Such  elegiac  passages  in  the  piece,  inspired  by 
genuine  feeling,  form  a  fitting  conclusion  to  the 
whole  sad  matter  of  Thelgon. 

The  last  poem,  "  The  Prize,"  is  a  song  contest, 
not  imitated  from  Spenser's  spirited  "verse-cap- 
ping "  August  eclogue,  but  expanded  line  by  line 
and  passage  by  passage  from  the  earlier  Latin 

82  Giles  died  1610. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  127 

"Lusus."  Apparently  the  piece  was  composed 
later  than  1616,  when  Fletcher  left  Cambridge, 
if  we  may  judge  from  the  lines: 

"  Thyrsil  their  judge,  who  now's  a  shepherd  base, 
But  late  a  fisher-swain,  till  envious  Chame 
Had  rent  his  nets,  and  sunk  his  boat  with  shame 
So  robbed  the  boyes  of  him,  and  him  of  all  his 
game." 

Before  him  are  bands  of  fishermen,  fisher  maid- 
ens, shepherds,  shepherdesses,  and  nymphs  who 
hear  Thomalin  (Tomkins),  champion  of  the  sea- 
shore, contest  for  the  prize  of  song  with  Daphnis, 
representing  the  rustics.  The  idyll  is  very  elabo- 
rate33 and  strives  everywhere  to  catch  the  man- 
nerisms of  Spenser.  It  is,  however,  by  far  the 
most  classic  in  form  of  the  entire  set,  since  the 
songs  of  the  fisherman,  as  in  the  "  Lusus,"  are 
derived  from  Sannazaro,  while  the  songs  of  the 
shepherd  are  as  strictly  Virgilian. 

From  this  brief  summary  it  may  be  seen  that  the 
eclogues  include  much  the  same  material  as  the 
Shepherds  Calender:  autobiography  expressed 
in  the  love  lay,  moral  and  religious  satire,  com- 
plaint at  the  neglect  of  poets,  elegy,  slurs  on 
tyrannical  nobles,  and  song  contest.  Thus  in 
seven  idylls  Fletcher  tried  his  hand  at  adapting 
all  Spenser's  leading  motives  except  the  fable 
(Feb.),  the  story  of  the  shepherd  boy  who  mis- 
took Cupid  for  a  bird  (March),  the  lyric  eulogy 
of  Queen  Elizabeth  (April),  and  the  dirge  (No- 
vember) imitated  from  Marot.  It  has  been  ob- 

83  All  are  longer  than  those  in  Spenser's  work. 


128  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

served,  however,  that  Fletcher  manages  to  pay  a 
handsome  compliment  to  the  Queen,  and  that  his 
elegy  on  Thelgon's  fate  forms  a  substitute  for 
Spenser's  November  theme,  so  that  the  work  is 
almost  a  complete  "  Fishers  Calender." 

The  vital  difference  between  the  two  sets  of 
poems  is  not  one  of  material,  but  of  meter  and 
of  diction.  All  the  fisher  pastorals  are  rendered 
in  verse  almost  identical  with  that  in  Spenser's 
December  eclogue,  but  though  some  slight  varia- 
tions occur,  Fletcher  never  attempted  the  experi- 
mentation which  is  a  marked  characteristic  of  the 
earlier  work.  Aside  from  this  matter  of  versi- 
fication Fletcher  strove  to  imitate  all  the  most 
obvious  mannerisms  of  his  model,  with  one  nota- 
ble exception — the  matter  of  phraseology.  The 
vocabulary  of  the  piscatories  is  Spenserian,  and 
occasionally  includes  archaic  terms  or  unusual 
spellings  of  words  of  the  day,  but  this  archaism 
is  slight,  as  compared  with  that  in  the  Calender, 
nor  does  the  wording  of  the  idylls  vary  to  fit  the 
themes  treated,  as  in  Spenser. 

These  limitations,  together  with  the  ever- 
present  effort  to  express  the  Sannazarian  conven- 
tions in  the  figures  and  words  of  Spenser,  con- 
stituted a  serious  handicap,  and  it  is  no  wonder 
that  Fletcher's  verse,  monotonously  even  and 
sweet,  never  attained  the  higher  poetical  effects 
of  his  model.  It  follows  that  naturalism  could 
hardly  result  from  such  a  scheme,  for  thin  as  it 
is,  the  allegory  was  perhaps  Fletcher's  chief  aim, 
and  his  characters  are  only  Cambridge  fisher  boys, 
even  less  professional  than  those  of  Sannazaro. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  129 

It  will  be  recalled  that  the  rather  thin  descrip- 
tive matter  in  the  Shepherds  Calender  becomes 
less  superficial  in  pieces  like  Colin's  January  com- 
plaint, where  the  interest  is  more  personal  than 
elsewhere,  and  the  same  thing  is  true  of  Fletcher's 
imitations.  Perhaps  the  most  striking  trait  in 
his  illustrative  matter  is  his  adaptation  of  Sanna- 
zarian  imagery  to  English  landscapes.  Thus  Thel- 
gon,  in  the  December  eclogue,  sings  under  beetling 
cliffs  beside  the  sea,  but  his  thoughts  fly  to  the 
river  he  knew  as  a  youth : 

"Of  Aquadune  I  learnt  to  fold  my  net, 
And  spread  the  sail,  and  beat  the  river  round, 
And  withy  labyrinths  in  straits  to  set, 
And  guide  my  boat,  where  Thames'  and  Isis'  heire 
By  lowly  Aeton  slides  and  Windsor  proudly  fair." 

"  There  while  our  thinne  nets  dangling  in  the  winde 
Hung  on  our  oars'  tips,  I  learnt  to  sing: 
Among  my  peers,  apt  words  to  fitly  binde 
In  numerous  verse;  witnesse  thou  crystall  spring, 
Where  all  the  lads  were  pebbles  wont  to  finde; 
And  you  thich  basics,  that  on  Thamis'  brink 
Did  oft  with  dallying  boughs  his  silver  waters 
drink." 

In  like  manner  the  January  poem  begins  near  the 
ocean : 

DORUS 

"  Myrtil,  why  idle  sit  we  on  the  shore  ? 
Since  stormy  windes,  and  waves'  intestine  spite 
Impatient  rage  of  sail  or  bending  oare; 
Sit  we  and  sing,  while  windes  and  waters  fight; 
And  carol  lowd  of  love  and  love's  delight." 

10 


130  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Myrtilus  suggests  a  more  suitable  theme: 

"  Tell  we  how  Thyrsil  late  our  seas  forswore, 
When  Forc't  he  left  our  Chame,  and  desert  shore." 

Dorus  replies: 

"  Now  as  thou  art  a  lad,  repeat  that  lay ; 
Myrtil,  his  songs  more  please  my  ravisht  eare, 
Then  rumbling  brooks  that  with  the  pebles  play, 
Then  murmuring  seas  broke  on  the  banks  to  heare, 
Or  windes  on  rocks  their  whistling  voices  teare." 

praise  that  sounds  like  the  marine  equivalent  for 
Spenser's 

"  Colin,  to  heare  thy  rymes  and  roundelayes, 
Which  thou  were  wont  on  wastfull  hylls  to  singe, 
I  more  delight  then  larke  in  Sommer  dayes: 
Whose  Echo  made  the  neyghbour  groves  to  ring." 

Yet  almost  immediately  afterwards  the  poet  turns 
to  inland  scenes,  and  subsequent  marine  illustra- 
tion is  limited  to  bits  like  these : 

"  Myrtil,  fast  down  by  silver  Medwaye's  shore : 
His  dangling  nets  (hung  on  the  trembling  oareM) 
Had  leave  to  play:  so  had  his  idle  hook, 
While  madding  windes  the  madder  Ocean  shook. 
Of  Chamus  had  he  learnt  to  pipe  and  sing, 
And  frame  low  ditties  to  his  humble  string." 

In  the  same  month  (Feb.)  after  a  calm: 

"  Late  thy  green  fields  slept  in  their  even  plains, 
While  smiling  heav'ns  spread  round  a  canopie, 
Now  tost  with  blasts  and  civil  enmitie, 
While   whistling  windes  blow   trumpets  to   their 
fight, 

84  Cf.  Sann.,  ec.  3» 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  131 

And  roaring  waves,  as  drummes,  whet  on  their 
spite." 

Again,  the  pathetic  fallacy  occasionally  extends 
to  the  waves : 

"Your   stately    Seas    (perhaps   with    Love's    fire) 

glow, 

And  over-seeth  their  banks  with  springing  tide; 
Mustring  their  white-plum'd  waves  with   lordly 

pride, 

They  soon  retire,  and  lay  their  curl'd  heads  low; 
So  sinking  in  themselves  they  backward  go. 
But  in  my  breast  full  seas  of  grief  remain, 
Which  ever  flow  and  never  ebbe  again." 

Such  are  the  marine  glimpses,  but  the  poet  is 
plainly  more  at  home 

"  Where  lordly  Trent  kisses  the  Darwin  coy, 
Bathing   his   liquid    streams    in    lover's    meeting 
joy."     (Ec.  5.) 

Pictures  like  the  following  in  the  sixth  pisca- 
tory eclogue  suggest  a  tendency  in  the  later  poems 
to  revert  to  the  orthodox  scenery  for  pastoral: 

"  The  warmer  sunne  his  bride  hath  newly  gown'd, 
With  firie  arms  clipping  the  wanton  ground, 
And  gets  an  heav'n  on  earth :  that  primrose  there, 
Which  'mongst  those  violets  sheds  his  golden  hair, 
Seems  the  sunne's  little  sunne,  fixt  in  his  azure 
sphere." 

Of  lambs  he  says 

"  See'st  how  they  skip,  and  in  their  wanton  pranks 
Bound  o'er  the  hillocks,  set  in  sportful  ranks? 
They  skip,  they  vault ;  full  little  caren  they 


132  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

To  make  their  milkie  mother's  bleating  stay. 
See'st  how  the  salmons  (water's  colder  nation) 
Lately  arriv'd  from  their  sea-navigation, 
How  joy  leaps   in   their  heart,   shewn  by  their 
leaping  fashion?  "  (ec.  6). 

In  expressing  his  poetic  ideals  (October)  Spen- 
ser, affecting  to  be  already  tired  of  the  pastoral, 
as  Virgil  had  done  before  him,  throws  aside  its 
fiction,  yearning  for  ideal  achievement  to  be  ex- 
pressed later  in  the  "  Faerie  Queene."  Some- 
what in  the  same  manner  the  last  piscatory  shows 
Fletcher  no  longer  a  fisher,  but  a  philosophical 
shepherd,  perhaps  looking  forward  to  what  he 
considered  his  highest  attainment,  imitation  of 
Spenser's  epic  in  the  "  Purple  Island."35 

The  uniformly  serious  tone  of  the  eclogues,  so 
different  from  the  sly  humor  which  colors  some 
of  the  Italian  marine  pastorals,  distinguishes  them 
from  Fletcher's  "  Sicelides,"  written  for  presen- 
tation before  King  James30  at  the  university 
(March,  1615).  The  lively  action  and  interest- 
ing characterization  which  distinguish  this  play 
from  the  rather  dull  manner  of  the  piscatory 
eclogues,  may  be  explained  in  part  by  the 
nature  of  some  productions  which  immediately 
preceded  the  drama.  Samuel  Daniel's  eclogue, 
"Ulysses  and  the  Siren"  (published  1605),  may 
have  suggested  to  William  Browne  the  theme  for 
his  Inner  Temple  Masque  (1614),  in  which  the 
wiles  of  the  sea-maiden  and  the  evasions  of  the 
crafty  Greek  furnish  much  the  same  humorous 

86  In  this  poem  the  poet  becomes  the  shepherd  Thyrsilis. 
"James  left  before  it  was  played. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  133 

situations  treated  by  Calderon  in  his  "  El  Golfo 
de  las  Sirenas."  Again,  as  an  island  play,  "  Sice- 
lides"  belongs,  topographically  at  least,  to  the 
same  category  as  Nashe's  "  Isle  of  Dogs,"  a  satir- 
ical piece  acted  in  1597,  Day's  farce  (founded 
on  Sidney's  "Arcadia"),  "The  Isle  of  Gulls" 
(1605),  and  Shakespeare's  "Tempest"  (1610- 
1611).  The  farcical  element  in  Fletcher's  pas- 
toral drama,  which  furnishes  a  light  under-plot, 
contains  touches  probably  inspired  by  the  "  Tem- 
pect,"  of  which  the  lines  descriptive  of  the  hid- 
eous creature  of  the  island  furnish  the  most  con- 
spicuous example,  and  we  may  assume  that 
Fletcher  had  in  mind  a  second  Caliban : 

"...  Mago,  (thus  his  hated  rivall's  nam'd) 
All  .blacke  and  foule,  most  strong  and  ugly  fram'd, 
Begot  by  Saturne  on  a  sea-borne  witch, 
Resembling  both ;  his  haires  like  threeds  of  pitch, 
Distorted  f eete,  and  eyes  suncke  in  his  head : 
His  face  dead  pale,  and  seem'd  but  mooving  lead, 
Yet  worse  within,  for  in  his  heart  to  dwell 
His  mother's  furies  have  their  darkest  hell." 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  occasional  Shake- 
spearean touches  can  be  traced  in  "  Sicelides,"  it 
is  quite  possible  that  Fletcher  found  in  Pericles 
(1607-1608)  recent  and  ample  precedent  for  pre- 
senting on  the  stage  scenes  depicting  fisher  life. 
The  two  rude  old  fellows  of  Fletcher's  play  seem 
caricatures  of  those  described  by  Theocritus,  but 
at  the  same  time  they  differ  so  completely  from 
their  humanistic  brethren  as  to  suggest  the  proba- 
bility that  their  conception  was  influenced  by  the 
popularity  of  Pericles.  The  sources  of  Shake- 


134  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

speare's  drama,  a  novel  by  Laurence  Twine,  the 
"  Patterne  of  Paineful  Adventures,"  (1576),  and 
the  tale  of  Apollonius  of  Tyre  in  Gower's  "  Con- 
fessio  Amantis,"  (1483),  embody  some  of  the 
English  renderings  of  a  story  extremely  popular 
throughout  the  literatures  of  Europe  from  early 
times,  and  almost  certainly  taken  from  a  lost 
Greek  romance  of  the  Heliodorus  cycle.  It  is 
significant  that  the  idyllic  picture  of  the  existence 
of  contented  poverty  led  by  the  fishers  in  the 
Ethiopian  History  was  imitated  in  other  ro- 
mances,37 notably  in  the  Ephesian  histories  of 
Xenophon,  whose  hero,  Habrokomes,  is  aided  and 
entertained  by  a  fisherman  of  Syracuse,  and  in 
the  story  of  Apollonius  of  Tyre.  The  sole  sur- 
vivor of  a  shipwreck,  that  prince  was  washed 
ashore  at  Cyrene,  where  he  met  an  old  fisherman 
who  took  pity  on  his  misery.  This  fisherman 
gave  Apollonius  some  of  his  own  garments,  and 
told  him  how  to  reach  Pentapolis,  where  he 
eventually  won  a  game  of  ball  in  a  competition 
before  the  king.38  This  story  changed  little  in 
ten  centuries,  and  in  Shakespeare's  play  the  iden- 
tical fisher  idyll  of  the  Greek  romance  is  repro- 
duced, in  amplified  form.  Near  Pentapolis,  Peri- 
cles, who  has  been  shipwrecked,  is  cast  upon  the 
coast,  where  he  sees  a  fisher  directing  the  work 

87  Rohde,  "  Der  griechische  Roman,"  pp.  412. 

38  For  the  various  ramification's  of  the  Apollonius  story, 
see  A.  H.  Smyth,  "  Shakespeare's  Pericles  and1  Apollonius 
of  Tyre."  For  an  account  of  the  Heliodorus  idyll,  see 
chapter  I.  A  novel  based  on  Pericles,  Geo.  Wilkins' 
"  Pericles  Prince  of  Tyre,"  pub.  1608.  Lillo's  "  Marina," 
a  play  based  on  acts  4  and  5,  pub.  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. See  A.  H.  Smyth. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  135 

of  two  others  at  the  nets.  The  conversation  be- 
tween these  men,  full  of  rude  mother  wit  and 
smacking  of  the  sea,  forms  part  of  the  most  real- 
istic picture  of  the  sort  in  English.  At  length 
Pericles  addresses  the  toilers  and  explains  his 
predicament.  Insolent  at  first,  they  soon  per- 
ceive the  prince's  real  distress,  and  give  him  a 
dry  gown,  after  which  one  leads  him  towards 
their  humble  home  to  stay  with  them,  while  the 
others  run  to  the  seines.  Presently  they  reap- 
pear dragging  a  net,  heavy  with  some  mysterious 
object,  which  proves  to  be  the  rusty  armor  once 
given  Pericles  by  his  father,  and  in  this  he  suc- 
ceeds in  winning  a  tournament  at  Pentapolis, 
whither  he  is  directed  by  the  fishers,  after  resting 
at  their  cabin.  If,  as  is  likely,  the  fisher  inter- 
ludes in  the  Greek  romances  are  imitated  from 
the  piscatory  idyll  of  Theocritus,  in  Pericles39  we 
find  the  survival  of  the  essentials  of  the  primitive 
species,  in  a  form  much  less  altered  by  time  than 
the  humanistic  genre  initiated  in  Italy  by  San- 
nazaro. 

Turning  now  to  "  Sicelides,"  we  find  that  it  is, 
for  the  most  part,  a  fisher  adaptation  of  motives 
characterizing  the  ordinary  pastoral  drama.  The 
fisherman  Perindus  is  in  love  with  the  fisher 
maiden  Glaucilla,  daughter  of  Glaucus  and  Circe, 
and  she  returns  his  love.  Fearing  a  threatening 
oracle,  however,  he  dissembles  his  affection  and 
treats  the  girl  with  apparent  scorn.  His  sister 
Olinda  is  loved  by  Glaucilla's  brother,  the  fisher 

89  As  the  Apollonius  story  was  wide-spread  the  fisher 
episode,  often  in  elaborate  form,  is  found  in  nearly  every 
European  language. 


136  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Thalander,  but  treats  all  his  advances  with  a  cold- 
ness distinctly  reminiscent  of  Silvia's  treatment 
of  Amynta  in  the  famous  Italian  pastoral.  She 
even  goes  so  far  as  to  accept  attentions  from 
Thalander's  rival,  the  hideous  monster  of  the  isle, 
and  this  "  hag-born  whelp  "  makes  Olinda  banish 
Thalander,  and  persuades  her  to  gather  Hesper- 
ian apples  in  a  sacred  grove.  For  this  she  is 
condemned  to  be  chained  to  a  reef  and  given  to 
Neptune's  horrible  "  ore,"  but  Thalander,  having 
returned  to  Sicily  disguised  as  Atyches,  slays  the 
beast,  and  as  reward  is  betrothed  to  Olinda,  who, 
however,  has  now  repented  of  her  harshness  to 
Thalander,  and  hence  can  not  love  her  rescuer. 

Meanwhile  a  very  wanton  nymph  of  Messina, 
Cosma,  whose  love  affairs  form  marine  equiva- 
lents for  those  of  the  light  Corisca  of  Guarini's 
Italian  "  Pastor  Fido,"  of  the  "  Wanton  Nymph 
of  Corinth"  of  Arcadian  casts,  or  again  of  Cloe 
in  John  Fletcher's  "  Faithful  Shepherdess,"  falls 
in  love  with  Perindus.  Perceiving  his  love  for 
Glaucilla  she  gives  his  sister  poison,  pretending 
that  it  is  a  love  philtre.  Glaucilla  suspects  the 
drug,  and  mingles  with  it  other  ingredients,  so 
that  when  the  girl  takes  the  draught  she  does  not 
die,  but  falls  into  a  trance.  Cosma,  deeming  the 
venom  effective,  now  accuses  Glaucilla  of  poi- 
soning Olinda,  and  manages  to  have  her  con- 
demned to  be  thrown  from  the  rocks  into  the 
ocean.  Perindus  appears  and  forces  the  priest 
of  Neptune  to  let  him  be  hurled  from  the  cliff,  in 
place  of  Glaucilla.  When  he  strikes  the  water 
he  is  rescued  by  two  old  fishermen,  Scrocca  and 


THE    ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  137 

Cancrone,  who  are  promptly  arrested  for  inter- 
fering with  the  course  of  divine  justice,  and  are 
condemned  to  be  led  to  the  mountains  to  be  de- 
voured by  Rimbombo,  a  cyclops,  son  of  famous 
Polyphemus. 

The  uncouth  gallantry  of  the  giant  to  Cosma 
recalls  the  Polyphemus  and  Galatea  idylls  of 
Theocritus.  Cosma's  page,  Conchylio,  dressed  in 
his  mistress'  clothes,  makes  assignations  with 
various  lovers,  among  them  with  Rimbombo, 
whom  he  contrives  to  tie  to  a  tree  in  the  branches 
of  which  the  fisher  Cancrone  is  watching  for  his 
nymph,  as  he  thinks.  Cancrone  leaps  on  Rim- 
bombo's  back  and  bounces  to  the  ground.  Then, 
Ulysses-like,  he  and  Conchylio  try  to  put  out  the 
eye  of  the  giant  with  a  staff,  but  the  monster 
manages  to  cut  his  bonds,  and  retreats  to  the 
highlands  in  disgust.  Another  of  Cosma's  suitors, 
the  lustful  old  fisherman  Fredocaldo,  who  is  also 
victimized  by  Conchylio,  is  perhaps  a  broad  cari- 
cature of  the  aged  scoundrel  in  the  "  Faerie 
Queene." 

At  the  close  of  the  play  Olinda  comes  back  to 
life,  and  is  led  to  Thalander  by  Glaucus  and 
Circe;  the  oracle  is  harmlessly  fulfilled,  the  old 
fishers  are  forgiven,  and  finally  the  father  of 
Perindus  and  Glaucilla,  Tyrinthus,  who  had  been 
captured  years  before  by  pirates,  returns  in  time 
for  the  double  wedding.  As  in  the  "  Pastor 
Fido"  and  the  "Faithful  Shepherdess,"  the 
wicked  nymph  repents  of  her  misdeeds,  but  in 
the  fisher  play  she  is  made  to  marry  Cancrone  in 
punishment  for  her  crimes. 


138  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

The  choruses  have  considerable  poetic  merit. 
One40  on  death  is  an  English  rendering  of 
Fletcher's  own  early  Latin  poem,  "  Mors  est 
Malum";  another  is  based  on  Ovid's  version  of 
the  descent  of  Orpheus  into  the  under-world; 
while  two  more  are  intended,  apparently,  for  Eng- 
lish equivalents  of  choruses  in  Tasso's  Amintas, 
or  Guarini's  Pastor  Fido.  One  of  them  is  on 
love,  and  the  other,  a  few  stanzas  of  which  fol- 
low, is  the  fisher  analogue  for  the  famous  Golden 
Age  chorus : 

"  Happie  happie  fisher-swaines, 
If  ye  knew  your  happiness; 
Your  sport  tastes  sweeter  by  your  paines, 
Sure  hope  your  labour  relishes: 
Your  net  your  living,  when  you  eate 
Labour  finds  appetite  and  meat. 

When  the  seas  and  tempests  roare 
You  eyther  sleepe  or  pipe  or  play, 
And  dance  along  the  golden  shore : 
Thus  you  spend  the  night  and  day 
Shrill  windes  a  pipe,  hoarse  seas  a  tabor 
To  fit  your  sports  or  ease  your  labour."*1 

A  word  should  be  added  about  the  portrayal  of 
fisher  folk  in  "  Sicelides."  In  spite  of  the  broad 
and  farcical  treatment  of  the  scenes  in  which 
Scrocca  and  Cancrone  figure,  they  give  more 
local  color  and  more  realistic  presentation  of  the 
life  of  the  seashore  than  all  of  the  poet's  eclogues 
put  together.  They  thus  have  more  significance 
in  the  piscatory  genre  than  the  other  scenes  of 

40  Act.  I.,  sc.  4. 

41  Act  2,  sc.  7. 


THE    ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  139 

the  drama,  which  are  not  essentially  different 
from  those  in  contemporary  shepherd  plays,  save 
in  the  pretense  of  a  fisher  life  and  of  appropriate 
activities. 

Unlike  the  eclogues  the  play  is  mainly  in  rimed 
couplets,  but  the  language,  as  in  most  of  Fletcher's 
poems,  apes  here  and  there  the  Spenserian  affec- 
tation of  archaic  phraseology.  Some  of  the  more 
obvious  borrowings  have  already  been  noted,  but 
it  should  be  noticed  that  occasionally  the  author 
utilizes  lines  from  the  piscatory  eclogues,  and 
that  the  ore  story,  though  perhaps  suggested  by 
the  Andromeda  myth,  or  by  the  ore  in  Ariosto, 
may  have  been  influenced  by  the  more  recent 
example  of  Lyly's  Galatea.  The  crime  for  which 
Olinda  was  condemned  was  probably  taken  from 
the  breaking  of  a  tree  sacred  to  Pan  in  Browne's 
Britannia's  Pastorals,42  and  from  the  same  source 
were  borrowed  Perindus'  self-sacrificing  leap  and 
the  timely  rescue. 

As  an  example  of  the  fisher  variant  on  pastoral 
drama  "  Sicelides "  occupies  rather  an  isolated 
place,  save  for  the  relationship  of  the  mytholog- 
ical side  of  the  piece  with  the  marine  masques, 
but  in  "  The  Thracian  Wonder,"  a  pastoral  play 
of  uncertain  authorship,  formerly  attributed  to 
Webster  and  Rowley,  and  printed  in  1661,  a  lin- 
gering43 of  the  piscatory  element  in  the  drama  is 
illustrated  by  the  introduction  of  an  old  fisher- 

42  See    W.    W.    Gregg,    pp.    341,    "Pastoral    Poetry    and 
Pastoral  Drama." 

43  In    Monk    Lewis'    play,    "  The    Castle    Spectre "    (pro- 
chiced     London,     1797)     we    find    a    fisherman's    hut — an 
example  of   the  piscatory   motive  in   "  Gothic "  drama. 


140  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

man  who  comes  to  Pheander,  King  of  Thrace,  to 
warn  him  of  the  approach  of  his  foes,  whom  he 
has  seen  coming  from  Sicily  (Act  3,  sc.  i). 

A  little  while  after44  Fletcher  finished  his  play, 
the  Scotchman,  John  Leech,  composed  his  Latin 
"  Musae  Priores,"45  including  fisher  and  "  nau- 
tical "  eclogues.  In  a  prefatory  epistle  the  author 
gives  a  rather  unnecessary  clue  to  his  sources, 
asking,  "  Who  besides  Sannazarius  has  done  pis- 
catories,  and  who  besides  Grotius  has  tried  '  nau- 
tical' poems?"  An  examination  of  the  fisher 
pastorals  shows  that  Leech  aimed  to  do  in  Latin 
what  Fletcher  had  done  in  English — namely  to 
express  the  Calender  motives  in  Sannazarian 
form  and  imagery.  Accordingly,  Leech's  father 
(thinly  disguised  as  the  fisher  Dorylas — ec.  i) 
bewails  the  neglect  of  his  poetry,  his  oppression 
at  the  hands  of  an  undeserving  rival,  and  his 
blighted  youth,  ending  with  an  appeal  for  the 
iavor  of  the  chancellor,  "  Setonius."  Next  we 
learn  that  Dorylas  is  lately  dead  (ec.  2)  and 
Leech  as  "  Stymichon,"  with  a  companion  fisher, 
mourns  his  unjust  treatment  and  sad  death,46  just 
as  occurs  in  the  corresponding  piece  by  Fletcher. 
Then  we  find  Lycon  (ec.  3)  lamenting  the  gen- 
eral neglect  of  poetry  and  religion,  and  criticizing 

44  Sicelides  was  first  published   1631,  in  an  edition  teem- 
ing with  misprints. 

45  Published  London,    1620.     In   fifth  "  nautica  "  he  says 
the  poem  was  done  "  Scotia  discedens',  Kal.  Octobris  1617." 
The  volume  contains  also  eclogues  of  vine-dressers,  elegies, 
epigrams,  and  anacreontics. 

49  The  elegy  is  like  Sannazaro's  "  Phyllis,"  but  concludes 
with  a  song  imitated  from  Virgil's  lament  for  Daphnis, 
the  singer  calling  on  the  nymphs  and  seagods  to  tell 
where  they  were  when  Dorylas  died. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  141 

the  evil  ways  of  powerful  fishers  in  "  great  boats." 
Another  poem  (ec.  5)  is  a  complaint  by  Stymi- 
chon  (the  poet  himself),  an  exile  from  Scotland, 
whose  boat  and  tackle  lie  on  the  banks  of  Thames. 
Sitting  there  he  repeats  his  father's  lament  at 
being  deprived  of  skiffs,  nets  and  hooks  by 
"greedy  Myrilus/'  with  other  misfortunes.  All 
this  is  very  like  Fletcher,  though  Leech  preserves 
more  specific  Sannazarian  effects,  such  as  the 
refrains.  A  single  eclogue  (4)  deserves  special 
mention  as  the  result  of  an  effort  to  imitate  the 
Theocritean  idyll  of  Asphalion  and  his  friend. 
Olpis47  is  seated  on  a  rock  with  Eurybaton,  "  the 
one  skilled  with  nets,  the  other  with  hooks."48 
Their  great  age,  their  senile  garrulity,  and  their 
companionship  in  poverty  recall  the  Greek  source, 
and  the  whole  piece  seems  like  a  studied  attempt 
to  transfer  the  ancient  fishermen  to  the  shores 
of  Scotland.  Olpis  jerks  a  fish  from  the  sea,  and 
asks  what  use  there  is  in  remembering  youth — 
"  Old  age  has  beset  with  ice  the  sharpness  of  my 
mind,  nor  can  I  remember — may  you  avail  for 
two."  The  other  replies  that  they  share  the  same 
tasks,  they  are  both  aged,  and  their  wattled  cabins 
stand  side  by  side,  so  that  what  pleases  one  can 
not  displease  the  other — true  friends  have  not 
different  minds.  This  passage  recalls  the  com- 
rades whom  Theocritus  depicts — both  aged,  shar- 
ers in  toil,  sleeping  in  a  wattled  cabin,  and  the 
Greek  Asphalion's  "  I  would  not  have  thee  to  go 
without  thy  share  in  my  vision;  even  as  we  go 
shares  in  the  fish  we  catch,  so  share  all  my 

**  Name  from  Theoc. 

48  Sannazairius,  fragmentum,  lines  16-17. 


142  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

dreams."  But  instead  of  telling  a  vision,  the 
Scotchman  gives  a  rambling  discourse  on  the 
wonders  of  nature  in  various  lands,  especially  the 
many  varieties  of  marvelous  fish,  concluding  with 
a  touch  of  local  color  in  picturing  salmon  rushing 
up  the  firths  of  Scotland,  with  the  songs  by  which 
Caledonian  fishermen  lure  them  to  their  weirs. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  Leech  mentions 
Grotius  as  the  only  poet  to  compose  "nautical" 
eclogues,  and  it  is  evident  that  he  took  the  hu- 
manist's word  in  the  matter,  since  in  a  Latin 
idyll  written  for  his  friend  Daniel  Heinsius, 
Grotius  had  declared,  "  The  stormy  surges,  and 
the  sandy  shores"  with  which  his  piece  deals,  to 
be  "  themes  yet  unsung."  In  spite  of  this  claim, 
however,  Grotius'  poem  is  a  very  plain  imitation 
of  Sannazaro's  "  Galatea,"  given  here  and  there 
a  "nautical,"  i.  e.,  deep  sea  touch — a  type  of 
poem,  as  has  been  shown,  of  common  occurrence 
in  the  sixteenth  century.  The  fisherman  Myrtilus 
has  just  landed  from  a  storm-tossed  bark  on  the 
coast  where  "  fair  Cochlis  "  lives  in  a  cave.  His 
complaint  at  the  cruelty  of  this  nymph  is  in  form 
closely  modeled  on  the  earlier  Latin  poem,  but 
the  singer  boasts  "the  strains  which  once  Arion 
sung,"  which,  rather  curiously,  include  the  sea- 
faring of  Jason,  Ulysses,  Circe,  Calypso,  Nau- 
sicaa,  etc.  Mention  of  such  mythical  voyagers 
and  an  invitation  to  Cochlis  to  sail  on  his  fish- 
ing vessel  are  the  only  "  nautical "  hints  -which 
differentiate  this  poem  from  other  piscatories, 
with  which  after  all  it  should  be  classed.  Strictly 
nautical  eclogues  are  concerned  with  mariners 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  H3 

and  not  with  fishers  like  Myrtilus,  who  offers 
Sannazarian  sea-spoil  as  propitiatory  gifts — oys- 
ters, etc. — and  expresses  his  desire  to  have  the 
girl  go  fishing  with  him  in  dories,  "  with  nets  and 
spears"  for  "  tunnies  and  soles,"  and  with  "floats, 
hooks,  and  lines." 

The  nautical  touches  were  what  Leech  was 
striving  to  emulate  in  his  poems,  and  he  accord- 
ingly tried  to  give  a  deep  sea  tone  to  his  descrip- 
tions, at  the  same  time  imitating  Sannazaro  even 
more  closely  than  in  his  piscatories.  One  poem 
modernizes  the  song  of  Arion,  the  sailors  Em- 
porus  and  Aegialeus  (name  from  one  of  Alci- 
phron's  epistles)  meeting  on  the  shore  near  their 
anchored  vessels,  and  singing  alternate  songs 
about  Magellan,  Vespucius,  Columbus  and  other 
great  explorers.  The  second,  "  Proteus,"  differs 
from  Sannazaro's  piece  by  the  same  name  only  in 
that  the  sea-god  sings  to  his  herd  near  a  vessel 
on  which  the  crew  are  sound  asleep.  Another  is 
imitated  from  Sannazaro's  contest,  but  is  ren- 
dered nautical  by  the  fact  that  the  singers  sit  on 
the  lofty  stern  of  a  ship,  while  the  sailors  are 
asleep.49  The  last  is  another  complaint  closely 
resembling  the  "  Galatea,"  and  sung  on  shore  by 
a  sailor-fisherman,  just  as  in  the  piece  by  Grotius. 
A  saucy  echo,  however,  is  borrowed  from  other 
fields  of  pastoralism  to  mock  the  cries  of  the  love- 
sick youth.  These  poems  belong  to  humanistic 
rather  than  to  English  literature,  and  are  included 
in  this  book  only  because  they  furnish  rather  in- 
teresting examples  of  Latin  imitation  of  the 

49  Some  parts  of  the  poem  are  mere  centos  of  Sannazaro. 


144  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Shepherds  Calender  in  piscatory  imagery,  and 
because  they  may  well  have  been  influenced  by 
the  more  pretentious  work  of  Fletcher. 

The  sixth  nymphal  in  Michael  Drayton's  "  The 
Muses'  Elyzium,"  published  in  1630,  is  the  last 
of  the  fisher  idylls  of  the  Elizabethan  period. 
That  the  idea  of  composing  such  a  poem  was  sug- 
gested to  him  by  Sannazaro's  work  may  be  in- 
ferred from  a  sentence  in  his  dedication  of  these 
pastorals  to  Sir  Walter  Aston  Drayton : 

..."  this,  as  all  the  other  forms  of  poesy  (except- 
ing perhaps  the  admirable  Latin  piscatories  of  that 
noble  Neapolitan,  Sannazar)  hath  been  received 
from  Greece  and  second  from  Rome." 

He  calls  his  own  poems  pastorals  in  name  only, 
and  "  bold  upon  a  new  strain,"  but  he  praises 
Spenser's  Calender,  and  calls  Spenser  the  prime 
pastoralist  of  England. 

Superficially  the  nymphal  bears  some  resem- 
blance to  Fletcher's  last  eclogue,  being  a  song 
contest  between  a  forester,  Silvius,  a  fisher,  Hal- 
cius,  and  a  shepherd,  Melanthus,  held  before  the 
nymphs  as  judges.  Fletcher's  piece,  it  will  be 
recalled,  is  a  match  between  a  fisher  and  a  shep- 
herd, before  an  umpire,  nymphs  and  shepherd- 
esses. Drayton's  poem,  however,  is  modeled  on 
nothing  but  the  dainty  fancies  of  an  ideal  world, 
the  culmination  of  a  long  sequence  of  pastoral 
work,50  and  almost  free  from  the  fetters  of  the 
classic  forms.  In  such  a  fairy  sphere  it  is  not 

"See  W.  W.  Greg,  pp.  103  fol. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  1 45 

surprising  to  find  the  nymphs,  fair  arbitresses, 
praising  the  songs,  and  at  the  end  crowning  all 
three  singers  with  fresh  garlands.  Each  youth 
praises  his  own  way  of  life,  and  Halcius'  song,  a 
graceful  lyric  and  at  the  same  time  one  that  offers 
a  contrast  with  the  strains  of  the  fisher  in 
Fletcher's  poem,  who  followed  the  classic  tech- 
nique, may  well  be  quoted  here,  together  with  a 
few  other  lines  of  interest.  The  introductory 
description  has  a  lyric  sweetness  that  forms  a 
fitting  prelude  to  what  follows : 

"  Cleere  had  the  day  bin  from  the  dawne, 
All  chequered  was  the  Skye, 
Thin  clouds  like  scarfs  of  Cobweb  Lawne 
Vayld  Heaven's  most  glorious  eye. 
The  Winde  had  no  more  strength  then  this, 
That  leisurely  it  blew, 
To  make  one  leafe  the  next  to  kisse, 
That  closly  by  it  grew. 
The  Rils  that  on  the  Pebbles  playd, 
Might  now  be  heard  at  will; 
This  world  they  onely  Musick  made, 
Else  everything  was  still. 
The  Flowers  like  brave  embraudred  Gerles, 
Lookt  as  they  much  desired, 
To  see  whose  head  with  orient  Pearles, 
Most  curiously  was  tyred." 

The  swains  and  nymphs  met  on  a  pretty  hill, 
where  a  dispute  arose  "  who  should  the  worthiest 
be,"  and  it  was  arranged  that  it  should  be  settled 
by  a  trial  of  skill.  The  forester  sang  first,  and 
the  nymphs  were  generous  in  praise,  vowing  to 
give  him  bays,  after  which  the  fisher  began  thus : 
ii 


146  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

"  No  Forrester,  it  must  not  be  borne  away, 
But  heare  what  for  himself  the  Fisher  first  can 

say, 
The  Chrystall    current    Streames    continually    I 

keepe, 
Where  every  Pearle-pav'd  Foard,  and  every  Blew- 

eyd  deepe 
With  me  familiar  are;  when  in  my  Boate  being 

set, 
My  Oare  I  take  in  hand,  my  Angle  and  my  Net." 

He  steers  wherever  he  pleases,  and  in  the  waters 
the  "  silver-scaled  Sholes  "  swarm  "  As  thick  as 
ye  discerne  the  Atoms  in  the  Beames."  He  likes 
especially  near  a  willow- fringed  bank : 

"...  to  sheeld  me  from  the  heat, 
Where  chusing  from  my  Bag,  some  prov'd  espe- 

ciall  bayt, 
The  goodly  well  growne  Trout  I  with  my  Angle 

strike, 
And  with  my  bearded  Wyer  I  take  the  ravenous 

Pike, 
Of  whom  when  I  have  hould,  he  seldom  breakes 

away 
Though  at  my  Lynes  full  length,  soe  long  I  let 

him  play 

Till  by  my  hand  I  finde  he  well-nere  wearyed  be, 
When  softly  by  degrees  I  drawe  him  up  to  me. 
The  lusty  Salmon  to,  I  oft  with  Angling  take, 
Which  me  above  the  rest  most  Lordly  sport  doth 

make, 
Who  feeling  he  is  caught,  such  Frisks  and  bounds 

doth  fetch, 
And  by  his  very  strength  my  Line  soe  farre  doth 

stretch, 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  147 

As  drawes  my  floating  Corcke  downe  to  the  very 

ground, 
And  wresting  of  my  Rod,  doth  make  my  Boat 

turne  round." 

When  not  thus  busied,  he  is  dragging  his  nets, 
or  baiting  fish  traps,  more  after  the  manner  of 
Sannazarian  fishermen,  or  even  catching  eels. 
Nor  are  the  nymphs  absent  from  these  scenes : 

"  The   Naijdes   and   Nymphes   that  in  the  Rivers 

Keepe, 
Which  take  into  their  care,  the  store  of  every 

deepe, 
Amongst  the  Flowery  flags,  the  Bullrushes  and 

Reed, 
That  of  the  Spawne  have  charge  (abundantly  to 

breed) 
Well   mounted  upon   Swans,  their  naked  bodies 

lend 

To  my  discerning  eye,  and  on  my  Boate  attend, 
And  dance  upon  the  Waves,  before  me  (for  my 

sake) 
To  th'  musick  the  soft  wind  upon  the  Reeds  doth 

make." 

Besides  these  inland  beings  the  divinities  of  the 
sea  come  in  with  every  tide: 

"...  the  roughrer  Gods  of  Seas 
From  Neptunes  court  send  in  the  blew  Neriades, 
Which  from  the  bracky  Realme  upon  the  Billowes 
ride." 

Lastly,  of  course,  he  sings  as  only  a  fisher  or  a 
shepherd  could  sing: 

"The    silent   medowes    seeme    delighted   with    my 
Layes, 


148  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

As  sitting  in  my  Boate  I  sing  my  Lasses  praise, 
Then  let  them  that  like,  the  Forrester  up  cry, 
Your  noble  Fisher  is  the  only  man  say  I." 

The  strains  of  the  other  singers  are  as  effective 
as  the  ones  quoted,  but  Halcius'  pictures  of 
angling  life  are  noteworthy  as  affording  a  glimpse 
at  a  delicately  idealized  realm  of  fancy,  and  at 
the  same  time  as  rendering  a  description  of  actual 
fishing  which  is  thoroughly  true  to  life  and  thor- 
oughly English.  Side  by  side  we  see  the  nymphs 
mounted  on  swans  and  the  fisher  engaged  in  play- 
ing a  salmon  in  the  most  sportsmanlike  manner, 
and  angling  of  this  sort  forms  a  marked  contrast 
with  the  thin  pretense  of  activities  kept  up  by 
the  characters  in  earlier  eclogues. 

All  the  English  poetry  thus  far  cited  is  directly 
or  indirectly  related  to  the  humanistic  genre. 
Within  regular  pastoral,  too,  from  ancient  times, 
occasional  mention  is  made  of  fishing,  and  in 
England,  where  angling  was  always  popular,  it 
was  only  natural  that  these  passages  should  re- 
ceive some  touches  of  local  color,  should  tend  in 
time  to  receive  considerable  emphasis,  and  even- 
tually should  be  rendered  by  themselves.  Among 
the  earliest  complete  poems  of  the  sort  is  John 
Donne's51  "The  Bait,"  composed  C.  1593,  a  clever 
adaptation  of  Marlowe's  famous  pastoral,  "  The 
Passionate  Shepherd  to  his  Love": 

"  Come,  live  with  me,  and  be  my  love, 
And  we  will  some  new  pleasure  prove 
Of  golden  sands,  and  crystal  brooks, 
With  silken  lines  and  silver  hooks. 

51  Published  London,   1633. 


THE    ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  149 

There  will  the  river  whispering  run, 
Warm'd  by  thine  eyes  more  than  the  sun ; 
And  there  th'  enamour'd  fish  will  stay, 
Begging  themselves  they  may  betray. 

When  thou  wilt  swim  in  that  live  bath, 
Each  fish,  which  every  channel  hath, 
Will  amorously  to  thee  swim, 
Gladder  to  catch  thee,  than  thou  him. 

If  thou  to  be  so  seen  be'st  loth 
By  sun  or  moon,  thou  darkenest  both; 
And  if  myself  have  leave  to  see, 
I  need  not  their  light,  having  thee. 

Let  others  freeze  with  angling  reeds, 
And  cut  their  legs  with  shells  and  weeds, 
Or  treacherously  poor  fish  beset, 
With  strangling  snare,  or  windowy  net. 

Let  coarse  bold  hands  from  slimy  nest 
The  bedded  fish  in  banks  out-wrest, 
Or  curious  traitors,  sleave-silk  flies, 
Bewitch  poor  fishes'  wandering  eyes : 

For  thee,  thou  need'st  no  such  deceit, 
For  thou  thyself  art  thine  own  bait, 
That  fish  that  is  not  catch'd  thereby, 
Alas!  is  wiser  far  than  I." 

Again,  in  John  Fletcher's  "  Faithful  Shepherd- 
ess" (1609-1611)  the  satyr  says: 

"...  when  the  weather 
Serves  to  angle  in  the  brook, 
I  will  bring  a  silver  hook, 
With  a  rod  as  white  as  milk, 
And  a  line  of  finest  silk 
To  deceive  the  little  fish.  .  .  ." 


IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 


It  is  to  be  doubted  whether  Walton  would  have 
approved  of  such  fanciful  tackle,  which  would 
suit  better  the  artificial  manner  of  Drayton's 
"  Shepherds'  Sirena,"  some  lines  of  which  repeat 
the  central  idea  of  Donne's  "  The  Bait  "  : 

"The  fishes  in  the  flood, 
When  she  doth  angle, 
For  the  hook  strive  a-good 
Them  to  entangle; 
And  leaping  on  the  land, 
From  the  clear  water, 
Their  scales  upon  the  sand 
Lavishly  scatter." 

Drayton's  lines  on  angling  are  rarely  so  artificial 
as  these,  and  his  description  of  salmon  running 
upstream,  given  in  his  "  Polyolbion,"  is  as  accu- 
rate as  can  be  desired,  being  incidentally  cited  as 
an  authoritative  passage  by  Walton  in  his  "  Com- 
pleat  Angler."  Similar  correctness  characterizes 
a  passage  of  twenty-five  lines  in  William  Browne's 
"Britannia's  Pastorals"  (1613-1616),  describing 
minutely  an  angler  playing  a  large  pike,  and 
within  a  few  years  independent  fishing  lyrics, 
ballads,  choruses,  etc.,  became  common.  Mean- 
while, after  the  publication  of  Fletcher's  pisca- 
tories  (1633)  the  exotic  genre  almost  died  out 
with  the  decay  of  pastoralism,  not  to  be  revived 
until  the  following  century,  when  Walton's  fa- 
mous treatise  became  so  much  an  object  of 
imitation. 

First  published  in  1653,  the  "  Compleat  An- 
gler" went  through  eight  editions  before  the 
close  of  the  century,  and  the  piscatory  poetry  of 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  151 

the  late  seventeenth  century  is  best  illustrated  by 
the  quotations  which  it  contains  of  poems  by  Du 
Bartas,  Sir  Henry  Wotton,  Joseph  Davors, 
Michael  Drayton,  John  Donne,  Phineas  Fletcher, 
Joseph  Chalkhill,  Walton,  and  many  others. 
These  verses  breathe  a  love  for  the  quiet,  quasi- 
pastoral  existence  of  the  angler,  and  form  part 
of  an  ever-increasing  literature  during  this  and 
the  two  following  centuries.  Anthologies  of  such 
poems  include  songs,  heroics  in  many  cantos, 
sonnets,  meditations,  etc.,  and  libraries  of  fish- 
ing books  often  contain  thousands  of  volumes  in 
verse  or  in  prose.  Much  of  all  this  verse,  how- 
over,  though  inspired  by  the  same  enthusiasm  for 
angling  to  which  many  writers  of  real  merit  gave 
expression,  is  the  work  of  men  who  were  better 
fishers  than  authors,  and  has  no  real  connection 
with  the  pastoral  species  which  we  are  tracing  in 
this  book  excepting  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
when  we  shall  find  some  points  of  contact,  espe- 
cially between  the  treatise  and  the  eclogue. 

During  the  late  seventeenth  century  the  fisher 
idyll  is  represented  in  England  only  by  a  few  dis- 
connected examples.  The  most  interesting  of 
these  is  to  be  found  in  Milton's  "  Paradise  Re- 
gained," where  Andrew  and  Simon,  with  others, 
after  searching  in  vain  for  the  Saviour  who  had 
been  revealed  to  them : 

"...  returned  in  vain. 
Then  on  the  bank  of  Jordan,  by  a  creek, 
Where  winds  with  reeds  and  osiers  whispering 

play, 

Plain  fishermen  (no  greater  men  them  call) 
Close  in  a  cottage  low  together  got." 


152  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

The  parenthesis  recalls  at  once  Fletcher's  "A 
Fisher-lad  (no  higher  dares  he  look),"  and  Spen- 
ser's "A  Shepeheards  boye,  (no  better  doe  him 
call,)"  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  idyllic 
picture  owes  its  simplicity  in  part  to  the  occa- 
sionally realistic  tradition  of  fisher  pastoral, 
though  more,  probably,  to  the  ultimate  source  in 
such  passages  in  the  Bible  as  the  following  :52 

18.  "And  Jesus,  walking  by  the  sea  of  Galilee, 
saw  two  brethren,  Simon  called  Peter,  and  Andrew 
his  brother,  casting  a  net  into  the  sea :  for  they  were 
fishers. 

19.  And  he  saith  unto  them,  Follow  me,  and  I 
will  make  you  fishers  of  men. 

20.  And  they  straightway  left  their  nets,  and  fol- 
lowed him." 

Ths  story,  it  will  be  remembered,  seems  to  have 
been  the  inspiration  of  Fletcher's  favorite  alle- 
gory. No  piece  of  the  sort  is  complete  without 
a  lament,  and  like  so  many  of  the  humanistic 
eclogues,  Milton's  fisher  idyll  voices  a  complaint 
and  a  prayer.  The  fishers : 

"  Their  unexpected  loss  and  plaints  outbreath'd," 
and  their  words  voice  complaint  at  the  disap- 
pearance of  Christ,  an  apostrophe  to  the  Crea- 

52  St.  Matthew,  4,  18,  19,  20.  Other  pieces  are:  Nicholas 
Rowe's  "  Glaucus  and  Scylla,"  in  which  the  mythical  fisher 
speaks  couplets,  a  ridiculous  dialogue  between  am  angler 
and  the  owner  of  some  land  down  stream  who  claims 
that  the  sportsman  is  muddying  the  water,  written  by 
William  King  and  called  "  The  Fisherman,"  and  T.  Ford's 
"  Piscatio  "  (1692),  a  Latin  piece  which  imitates  Horace's 
"  Beatus  Ille "  in  imagery  adapted  to  angling  life,  and 
which  was  five  times  rendered  in  English  in  the  next 
century. 


THE    ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  1 53 

tor,  a  prayer  that  the  Messiah  be  given  back  to 
them,  and  determination  to  abide  the  divine  will 
in  quiet  hope. 

THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

In  the  early  eighteenth  century  the  fisher  ec- 
logue revived,  but  its  nature,  as  well  as  that  of  the 
regular  bucolic,  was  modified  by  the  attitude  of 
the  Augustan  period  towards  pastoralism.  Pope 
criticised  severely  the  use  of  allegory  and  religion 
in  Spenser's  Calender,  while  Steele53  insisted  on 
simplicity  of  manners,  innocence  and  a  mixture 
of  piety  with  superstition  as  essential  parts  of 
shepherd  character  and  maintained  that  style  was 
the  most  important  thing  in  all  pastoral  poetry. 
These  writers,  as  was  natural  in  an  artificial 
period,  when  form  was  more  regarded  than  spirit, 
preferred  Virgil  to  Theocritus.  By  "  style  "  and 
"  Virgil's  style,"  the  critics  of  the  day  meant  in 
English  the  sort  of  verse  exemplified  by  Pope's 
pastorals,  and  by  Dryden's  translation  of  Virgil's 
bucolics.  Of  course,  therefore,  the  meter  of  pis- 
catories  and  shepherd  songs  alike  became  rhymed 
couplet. 

The  first  fisher  idyll  of  the  period,  John  Whit- 
ney's "  The  Genteel  Recreation  with  A  Dialogue 
between  Piscator  and  Corydon "  appeared  in 
1700.  The  "  dialogue  "  is  really  a  fisher  poem  in 
which  the  classic  motives  are  replaced  by  Walton- 
ian  imagery.  Occasional  references  to  Thetis, 
Venus,  Neptune,  etc.,  recall  vaguely  the  conven- 
tions of  the  exotic  genre,  but  do  not  convince  the 

63  Ta  tier,   1704,  "Discourse  on  the  Pastoral." 


154  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

reader  that  Whitney  had  ever  heard  of  Sanna- 
zaro.  His  object  was  obviously  to  produce  a 
versified  "  Compleat  Angler  "  in  miniature.  Ac- 
cordingly Piscator  and  Corydon  expatiate  on  the 
delights  of  a  fisherman's  life  and  of  a  herdsman's 
life,  somewhat  as  do  the  classic  shepherds  and 
neatherds,  but  more  after  the  manner  of  "  Pis- 
cator, Venator  and  Auceps"  at  the  beginning  of 
the  "Angler,"  and  as  in  that  treatise,  Piscator 
persuades  his  hearer  to  watch  him  display  the 
beauties  of  angling,  while  a  herdsman  tends  his 
cattle.54  A  few  lines  will  give  an  idea  of  the 
qualities  of  the  verse,  which  to  tell  the  truth,  is 
not  that  of  a  poetic  genius: 

PISCATOR 

"  Propitious  fortune  bless  my  floating  quill 
By  which,  observing  how  the  Fishes  still 
Nible  the  bait,  then  greedy  swallow  all, 
As  dying  Victims,  triumph  in  their  fall, 
That  Corydon  may  see  the  difference  and  find, 
That  pleasure   soon   expels   the   troubles  of   the 
mind." 

The  rest  of  the  piece  is  almost  an  epitome  of 
Walton's  treatise.  Piscator's  skill  and  success  are 
witnessed  by  Corydon,  who  becomes  a  convert  to 
the  gentle  art,  and  invites  the  angler  with  his 
friends  to  feast  on  their  catch,  which  Piscator 
cooks  in  approved  Waltonian  fashion.  The  milk- 
maids, Phillis  and  Chloris,  are  called  on  to  sing, 
just  as  in  that  part  of  the  "  Angler  "  where  a  milk- 
maid sings  Marlowe's  "  Come  live  with  me  and 

M  Just  as  occurs  in  Virgil's  fifth  bucolic. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  155 

be  my  love,"  and  her  mother  replies  with  the 
"  Milk-maid's  Mother's  Answer."  Whitney's  lyrics 
sound  almost  ludicrous  beside  Marlowe's,  but 
their  enthusiasm  entitles  them  at  least  to  that  mild 
adjective,  "  quaint." 

"  Nereides  or  Sea-Eclogues,"55  by  John  Draper 
(always  misprinted  "  Diaper")  are  the  first  Eng- 
lish poems,  written  after  Drayton's  nymphal,  that 
employ  Sannazarian  imagery,  though  strictly 
speaking,  only  one  of  them  is  a  fisher  eclogue. 
In  his  Journal  to  Stella,  Swift  particularly  men- 
tions this  as  the  earliest  book  of  its  kind  in  our 
literature,  and  says  that  Lord  Bolingbroke  sent 
the  author  the  then  important  sum  of  twenty 
pounds.  He  might  have  said  that  it  is  the  only 
book  of  its  kind  in  any  literature,  without  being 
guilty  of  a  gross  misstatement.  In  his  dedica- 
tion to  Congreve  the  poet  states  that  ancient  and 
modern  bards  have  exhausted  the  beauties  of  the 
land: 

"  But  the  vast  unseen  Mansions  of  the  Deep, 
Where  secret  Groves  with  liquid  amber  weep, 
Where  blushing  Sprigs  of  knotty  coral  spread 
And  guild  the  Azure  with  a  brighter  red, 
Were  still  untouch'd.  .  .  ." 

His  Muse  ..."  But  would  plain  songs  in  artless 
verse  contrive, 

And  humbly  modest  only  asks  to  Dive." 

He  declares  that  the  beauties  of  the  sea  have  been 
painted  only  "  in  a  few  piscatory  eclogues,"  and 
that  though  Lucian  wrote  of  sea-gods  it  was 
"  chiefly  to  expose  the  heathen  deities,"  but  "  The 

"London,  1712. 


156  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

best  modern  productions  are  owing  to  hints  of 
Lucian  the  wit."  He  adds  that  he  was  encour- 
aged to  write  of  the  ocean  by  accounts  of  "  Sea- 
Animals  in  human  shape,"  told  of  by  Aelian  and 
Pliny  among  the  ancients,  and  by  Olaus  Magnus, 
Rhannusius,  Alvarez  and  other  moderns.  He 
believes  that  these  stories  gave  •  rise  to  tales  of 
nereids,  tritons,  sirens,  with  the  numerous  court 
of  Neptune  and  Tethys,  so  that  he  will  not  ven- 
ture to  decide  whether  such  beings  "  have  not 
sometimes  (at  least  as  to  their  outward  parts) 
been  found  with  bodies  proportionable,  and  simi- 
lar to  ours,  or  like  Horace's : 

With  lovely  Face,  and  flowing  Hair 
The  Nereid  looks  divinely  fair; 
But  ah !  no  farther  seek  to  know, 
A  fishy  tail  is  all  below. 

His  belief  in  such  creatures  is  strengthened  by 
the  modern  cases  of  the  mermaid  kept  at  Harlem, 
of  the  mermaid,  entirely  human,  told  of  in  the 
English  chronicles,  and  by  the  statement  of  Du 
Bartas  that  the  sea  holds  "  The  mitred  Bishop 
and  the  Cowled  Fryar."  Lastly,  he  gives  credit 
to  the  words  of  Alexander  ab  Alexandro  who 
says  that  Theodorus  Gaza,56  a  learned  Greek  of 
Pelopponesus,  once  saw  a  nereid  with  shoals  of 
fish  stranded  by  a  storm.  People  gathered  to 
stare  at  the  marvel,  but  as  the  mermaid  wept  bit- 

M  Besides  the  tales  of  Gaza  Draper  may  have  read  other 
accounts,  such  as  "  A  most  strange  and  true  report  of  a 
monsterous  fish,  who  appeared  in  the  forme  of  a  woman, 
from  her  waste  upwards.  Imprinted  at  London  for  W.  B." 
This  nereid  was  found  in  the  parish  of  Pendine,  Carmar- 
then, Feb.  17,  1630. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  157 

terly,  Gaza  put  her  back  into  the  water.  Alex- 
ander also  reports  that  another  Greek  saw  a 
nereid  sporting  in  the  waves,  but  when  she  per- 
ceived herself  observed  she  sank  from  sight. 
Relying  on  such  authorities,  Draper  states  that 
while  some  poets  are  talking  about  the  inhabitants 
of  other  planets,  he  will  turn  to  the  ocean  and 
"  discover  the  manners  of  people  nearer  home." 

Accordingly  his  Muse  is  allowed  to  "  dive  "  to 
a  new  Arcadia  in  the  coral  groves  of  the  deep 
sea.  In  his  eclogues  the  characters  are  tritons 
and  mermaids,  who  wail  laments,  indulge  in  sing- 
ing contests,  or  perform  incantations,  in  a  manner 
as  much  like  that  of  the  classic  pastorals  as  a 
careful  use  of  Pope's  couplet  permits,  and  yet 
obvious  imitations  of  Sannazarian  illustration57 
are  very  numerous.  Thus  we  find  the  curious 
case  of  a  poet  of  the  Augustan  school,  interested 
in  sea-beings,  and  encouraged  by  classic  and 
modern  lore,  composing  idylls  of  mermen  and 
nereids  who  behave  exactly  like  the  personages 
in  Virgil  or  Sannazaro. 

A  passage  from  a  pharmaceutria  performed  by 
the  mermaid  Meroe,  with  her  friend  Otys,  illus- 
trates Draper's  manner  of  fitting  classical  pas- 
toral activities  to  their  surroundings  in  the  sea: 

"  Otys,  begin  .  .  . 

Since  he  is  gone,  I'll  fetch  him  to  my  Arms 
By  sacred  spells,  and  Force  of  Magick  Charms. 
Search  in  the   Slime,  you'll   find  the   cramp-fish 
there, 

w  It  will  be  recalled  that  in  Sannazaro's  "  Proteus  "  th« 
songs  of  the  shepherd  of  the  sea  were  made  a  piscatory. 


I5  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

That  chilling  stops  whatever  swims  too  near: 
You'll  find  the  Fish,  that  stays  the  labouring  Ship, 
Tho'  ruffling  Winds  drive  o'er  the  noisy  Deep : 
So  Phorbas,  while  from  me  he  perjur'd  flies, 
Is  struck  benumb'd,  and  fix'd  with  strange  sur- 
prise." 

The  fish  mentioned  are  the  same,  and  have  the 
same  rather  alarming  attributes,  as  those  that 
figure  in  the  Sannazarian  piece  from  which 
Draper  adapted  this  idyll.  Two  bits  show  the 
influence  of  Theocritus,  the  first  a  new  render- 
ing of  the  old  refrain  to  the  moon : 

"  Look  down,  auspicious  Moon ;  too  well  you  know 
What  Love  will   force,  and  potent  Charms  can 
do  .  .  ." 

and  the  other  the  treatment  of  a  poor  dog-fish 
(here  substituted  for  the  Theocritean  waxen 
image)  which  is  pierced  to  torture  Phorbas  by 
proxy. 

With  this  incantation  may  be  classed  two  love 
complaints,  in  one  of  which  (ec.  2)  Gaza's  story 
is  utilized.  The  mermaid  Eune  swims  ashore 
with  her  triton  lover,  where  she  falls  asleep,  and 
on  waking  finds  herself  left  high  and  dry  by  the 
tide,  Melvin  having  treacherously  stolen  away. 
She  weeps,  and  utters  a  piteous  lament,  but  in 
time  the  sea  rolls  back  over  the  sands  and  with 
the  first  wave  comes  her  recreant  sweetheart. 
The  other  plaint  (ec.  13)  is  uttered  by  Cymo- 
thoe,  who  upbraids  our  old  friend  Glaucus  for 
ingratitude — she  taught  him  swimming,  with  all 
the  other  secrets  of  the  deep,  when  he  first  tasted 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  159 

the  magic  grass  and  was  "added  to  the  gods," 
and  now  he  neglects  her  for  the  "flat-nosed 
Cyano."  Her  reproaches  are  phrased  in  the  classic 
manner,  only  that  at  the  conclusion  she  makes  no 
threat  of  leaping  from  a  cliff,  but  declares  that 
she  will  swim  straight  into  the  nets  of  fisher- 
men unless  Glaucus  promises  reform  at  once,  and 
this  he  proceeds  to  do.  A  companion  piece  is  an 
elegy,  obviously  a  merman  rendering  of  Sanna- 
zaro's  "  Phyllis,"  and  notable  for  the  compliment 
which  the  singer  receives  from  his  admiring 
friend : 

"  Not  half  so  sweet,  when  first  the  Morning  dawns, 
Are  juicy  Oysters,  or  the  lucious  Prawns." 

The  religious  allegory  of  Spenser  was  not 
looked  on  with  favor  in  Draper's  day,  but  one 
group  of  the  Nereides,  related  to  the  eclogues 
contrasting  shepherd  life  with  that  at  court,  re- 
minds us  of  the  old  motive  in  the  complacent 
view  which  tritons  take  of  their  own  state,  with 
their  scorn  for  the  baser  ways  of  men.  In  one 
poem  Muraena  from  the  summit  of  a  rock  views 
with  contemptuous  pity  toiling  shepherds  with 
their  bleating  flocks,  and  tells  how  much  happier 
than  human  beings  live  the  merry  mermen.  An- 
other presents  two  tritons  moralizing  on  the  false 
pride  of  mortals,  and  declaring  the  futility  of 
searching  to  understand  the  mysteries  which 
Heaven  denies  to  our  weaker  sight  before  we 
become  spirits.  In  tone  this  is  the  most  serious 
of  the  set,  but  it  imitates  the  amoeboean  songs  in 
Sannazaro's  third  poem,  in  which  ridiculous  lists 


l6o  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

of  fish  are  substituted  for  the  classic  flower  lists. 
Draper  utilizes  these  catalogues  to  illustrate  the 
greatness  of  the  Creator,  as  proved  by  the  mar- 
vels of  ocean.  The  most  original  of  this  group 
gives  a  conversation  in  which  Phorbas  and  Dry- 
mon  talk  about  a  terrific  naval  battle  which  has 
taken  place,  about  a  fleet  in  the  distance,  and 
about  the  greed  and  avarice  of  men,  as  reported 
by  the  transformed  Glaucus.  Melanthus  comes 
reeling  along  the  beach,  having  broached  a  cask 
which  he  has  discovered  amid  some  wreckage. 
He  declares  that  he  feels  like  a  king  and  adds : 

'*  My  head's  so  wondrous  light,  I  scarcely  find 
Whether  I  move  on  Waves  or  dance  on  Wind  .  .  . 

I  quaffed  full  bowls  in  a  capacious  Shell. 
Ye  Gods !  if  earthy  Men  thus  live  and  drink, 
Give  me  the  Land,  the  Sea's  a  worthless  Sink." 

The  other  tritons  immediately  start  in  search  of 
the  wonderful  drink. 

Draper  composed  several  song  contests,  and 
incidentally  made  use  of  Gaza's  diving  mermaid, 
coquetting  in  the  waves,  who  is  the  prize  in  one 
of  them  (ec.  13).  Another  exemplifies  the  con- 
ventional exchange  of  rude  banter,  and  still  an- 
other is  rendered  by  two  nereids,  of  the  wanton 
type,  an  interesting  touch  being  the  refrain : 

"  Since  nothing  here  we  fixed  or  constant  find, 
Why  should  the  Nereid  boast  a  settled  mind  ?  " 

Everywhere  in  these  poems  occur  bits  of  pretty 
description,  much  better  than  one  might  expect 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  l6l 

in  a  work  of  such  a  peculiar  sort.     Of  a  sea- 
nymph  one  triton  sings : 

"  Her  rising  Breasts  are  white  as  polished  Shells, 
And  in  each  part  a  different  beauty  dwells." 

Another  typical  passage  is  a  challenge : 

"  Begin,  if  thou  art  skill'd  in  tuneful  lay, 
Now  whispering  Breezes  gentle  Sounds  convey, 
The  noisy  Winds  in  bolted  caves  are  prest, 
And  now  the  Halcyon  builds  her  wavering  nest." 

Virgil's  "  seizing  of  Proteus "  motive  is  ren- 
dered when  Ino  and  Cete,  a  merman  and  a  nereid, 
find  that  sea-god  sleeping  near  his  scaly  herd,  just 
as  occurs  in  the  fourth  georgic.  Of  course  they 
grasp  the  old  fellow  and  insist  on  his  singing  a 
song,  to  which  he  is  forced  to  assent.  He  chants 
an  account  of  the  history  of  the  universe  modern- 
ized (from  that  given  by  Virgil's  Silenus,  when 
caught  by  the  shepherds  in  the  sixth  bucolic)  to 
embody  the  theories  of  Draper's  day. 

Only  one  of  the  collection  is  a  true  piscatory. 
In  it  Murex  asks  Glaucus  if  he  has  seen  the  fleet, 
and  learns  that  it  has  sailed  everywhere  under 
command  of  the  great  Lacon  (Leake).  Near 
England  the  scaly  god  overheard  the  talk  of  two 
half-frozen  fishermen,  who  admired  the  admiral, 
and  repetition  of  their  conversation  makes  up  the 
idyll  proper.  The  two  men  are  in  a  skiff  toiling 
at  their  nets  by  night,  with  fingers  cramped  by 
the  bitter  cold.  It  is  new  moon  and  the  snow- 
covered  shores  are  faintly  visible  through  the 
gray  light.  Exasperated  by  his  wretched  condi- 


162  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

tion  the  younger  man  decries  the  fate  which 
drives  him  abroad  on  the  black  sea  at  a  time 
when  even  the  poorest  clown  lies  at  his  ease.  He 
draws  a  picture  of  shepherd  life,  which  he  de- 
clares far  happier  than  that  of  fisher- folk.  The 
old  man  replies :  "  All  think  their  Fortune  is  of 
all  the  worst,"  and  says  that  fishers  are  in  fact 
envied  by  countrymen.  They  eat  the  choicest  of 
food :  cod,  mullets,  soles  and  mackerel,  fish  which 
landsmen  pay  large  prices  for,  even  when  stale. 
Labor  on  the  waves,  too,  is  easier  than  that  "  in 
clotting  fields,"  for  sometimes  the  zephyrs  breathe 
sweetly,  while  sands  are  soft  and  warm.  Nor  is 
their  livelihood  dependent  wholly  on  fish,  since 
they  can  scale  high  ledges,  while  sea-birds  wheel 
and  scream,  and  can  gather  plenty  of  the  most 
delicious  eggs.  He  then  praises  Lacon,  admiral 
of  the  English  fleet,  who  protects  the  isle  with  its 
fishers  from  the  attacks  of  hostile  ships.  Glaucus 
pities  the  men  and  drives  shoals  of  fish  into  their 
seine.  There  is  a  certain  grim  realism  about  the 
dialogue  and  many  bits  of  local  color,  which  dis- 
tinguish it  sharply  from  the  piscatories  of  Fletcher, 
Leech  and  Drayton.  Draper's  poems,  too,  are 
almost  unspoiled  by  the  ridiculous  pathetic  fal- 
lacies that  characterize  so  many  verses  of  the 
genre.  In  its  underlying  purpose  the  eclogue 
bears  some  resemblance  to  Sannazaro's  panegyric 
of  Ferdinand,  but  it  is  not,  like  the  other  Nereides, 
filled  with  borrowings  of  individual  Sannazarian 
conceits,  but  gives  the  exotic  species  a  local  habi- 
tation and  a  home.  Perhaps  the  two  fishers  are 
made  real  as  an  example  of  the  Theocritean  pis- 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  163 

catory  transferred  to  English  shores,  as  is  true  of 
one  of  the  pieces  by  Leech  already  mentioned. 
The  verse  of  all  these  poems,  though  a  bit  stiff, 
is  yet  replete  with  happy  turns  of  speech  and 
pieces  of  description  which  denote  an  apprecia- 
tion of  nature  unusual  two  decades  before  the 
publication  of  Thomson's  Seasons. 

The  favorable  reception  that  the  Nereides  met 
apparently  did  not  please  the  contemporary  critics, 
who  formulated  cut  and  dried  rules  for  the  pas- 
toral. Not  long  after  the  poems  appeared  the 
Guardian  (No. 28,  Monday,  April  13, 1713)  printed 
a  severe  criticism  of  Sannazaro's  piscatories,  of 
which  a  few  lines  are  as  follows : 

"  While  I  am  speaking  of  the  Italians,  it  would 
be  unpardonable  to  pass  by  Sannazaro.  He  hath 
changed  the  scene  in  this  kind  of  poetry  from 
woods  and  lawns,  to  the  barren  beach  and  bound- 
less ocean,  introduces  sea-calves  in  the  room  of 
kids  and  lambs,  sea-mews  for  the  lark  and  the 
linnet,  and  presents  his  mistress  with  oysters  in- 
stead of  fruits  and  flowers.  How  good  soever 
his  style  and  thought  may  be  yet  who  can  par- 
don him  for  his  arbitrary  change  of  the  sweet 
manners  and  pleasing  objects  of  the  country,  for 
what  in  their  own  nature  are  uncomfortable  and 
dreadful?  I  think  he  hath  few  or  no  followers, 
or,  if  any,  such  as  knew  little  of  his  beauties,  and 
only  copied  his  faults,  and  so  are  lost  and  for- 
gotten." This  criticism  is  said  to  have  been 
written  by  Addison.  It  will  be  noticed  that  San- 
nazaro's style  (being  Virgilian)  meets  with  no 
censure,  but  that  the  critic  objects  to  the  arbi- 


164  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

trary  shifting  of  the  scene  from  sunny  Arcadia 
to  "  uncomfortable  and  dreadful "  shores.  Per- 
haps his  travels  in  Italy  failed  to  impress  Addison 
with  the  quiet  beauties  of  the  Bay  of  Naples,  and 
at  any  rate,  the  criticism  sounds  in  every  way  like 
the  view  of  pastoralism  which  was  to  be  expected 
from  the  Londoner  of  the  day. 

The  Guardian  probably  helped  to  discourage 
further  imitation  of  Sannazarian  pieces  in  Eng- 
land, but  it  is  clear  that  everybody  did  not  agree 
with  Addison.  In  1724  Beaupre  Bell  translated 
Sannazaro's  "  Salices,"  and  two  years  later  met- 
rical versions  of  the  piscatories  appeared,  one  by 
Tate,  and  the  other  by  J.  Rooke.  In  a  preface 
to  his  translation,  Rooke  refutes  Addison's  state- 
ments, and  defends  the  pastoral  of  the  sea-shore. 
He  has  no  patience  with  the  view,  sometimes 
urged,  that  the  life  of  fishers  does  not  offer  so 
great  a  variety  of  materials  to  the  poet  as  does 
the  life  of  shepherds,  saying  that  the  experiences 
of  fishermen  may  not  be  "  so  various "  but  are 
"  sufficient."  Lastly  he  shows  that  Virgil,  whom 
the  critics  of  the  day  regard  as  the  highest  au- 
thority in  poetical  matters,  is  especially  fond  of 
marine  pictures,  and  that  these  form  definite 
precedent  for  the  works  of  Sannazaro  and  his 
imitators.  The  criticism  in  the  Guardian,  of 
course,  shows  that  Sannazaro's  followers  were 
not  known  at  this  time  in  England,  but  the  essay 
of  Rooke  and  the  translations  indicate  that  the 
great  humanist  had  loyal  defenders  even  in  this 
period,  more  than  two  hundred  years  after  the 
composition  of  his  poems. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  165 

Rooke's  translations  include  besides  Sanna- 
zaro's  eclogues,  a  few  by  other  humanists,  such 
as  the  very  poem  by  Grotius  which  suggested  to 
Leech  the  idea  of  writing  "  nauticae."  The  verse, 
rhymed  couplet,  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to 
that  of  Draper,  and  in  fact  may  more  justly  be 
regarded  as  rhymed  paraphrase  than  as  literal 
translation.  A  passage  from  Buchanan's  bucolic 
"Amaryllis"  will  illustrate  the  style: 

"  So,  have  I  seen  a  Fisherman  convey 
His  nets  ashore,  in  quest  of  nobler  Prey, 
And  cast  a  little  Tench,  with  Scorn,  away: 
Who,  home  at  last  returned,  by  Fortune  crost, 
And  not  a  Mullet  nor  a  Tench  could  boast." 

Only  a  year  after  the  publication  of  Rooke's 
poems  the  Rev.  Moses  Browne,  then  twenty-two 
years  old  (in  the  summer  of  1727), composed  the 
most  popular  of  all  English  fisher  idylls,  first 
published  in  1729,  under  the  title  "Angling 
Sports  in  nine  Piscatory  Eclogues — A  New  At- 
tempt to  introduce  a  more  pleasing  Variety  and 
Mixture  of  Subjects  and  Characters  into  Pas- 
toral on  the  Plan  of  its  primitive  Rules  and 
Manners,  and  the  lovers  of  Nature  in  rural 
Scenes.  With  an  Essay  in  Defence  of  this  Un- 
dertaking." In  the  blank  verse  dedication  he 
writes  begging  the  favor  of  Dodington  as  follows  : 

"  Nor,  of  the  rural  theme  contemptuous  scorn 
An  humble  Verse,  tho'  of  the  watery  race, 
And  Fisher's  sports  descriptive,  labour  new. 
The  fam'd  Sicilian  Swain  'his  oaten  reed 
To  Ptolemy  attun'd,  and  Maro's  Song 
Made  lowly  shades  deserve  a  Consul's  care 


1 66  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

So  might  but  thine  the  piscatory  strain 

Engage  .  .  . 

Nor  less  delightful  shou'd  th'  unlofty  lay 

Be  then  esteemed,  that  sings  of  Fishy  Lakes 

Bank'd  with  green  shade ;  peace-visited  retreats, 

The  Anglers  Haunts,  and  lonely-loving  Bard's. 

Enrapt  I  languish  for  the  wish'd  retreat, 
Deny'd  to  my  unhappy  choice — For  me 
Hard-lotted  hours  with  chearless  round  renew, 
Except,  when  by  the  Poet's  page  enlarg'd, 
I  wander  far  thro'  classic  shades  renown'd; 
O'er  Helicon,  thy  hallow'd  walk,  and  thine 
Green  Ida,  seat  of  desolated  Troy." 

Here  we  find  an  angler,  kept  from  his  craft  by 
circumstances,  and  turning  to  literature,  espe- 
cially to  the  pastorals  of  Theocritus  and  Virgil, 
for  comfort.  Like  Sannazaro  and  Grotius  he 
terms  his  work  "  labour  new,"  rather  a  misnomer, 
considering  his  obvious  indebtedness  to  Sanna- 
zaro and  his  acquaintance  with  the  eclogues  of 
Fletcher,  which  as  we  shall  see,  gave  him  several 
hints. 

The  introductory  essay  is  an  attempt  to  show 
that  fishermen's  activities  are  legitimate  material 
for  pastoral  poetry.  He  takes  exception  to  the 
view  of  critics  who  make  Theocritus,  Virgil,  and 
Tasso  the  only  writers  of  real  pastorals,  declar- 
ing that  to  these  names  should  be  added  Spenser, 
John  Fletcher,  William  Browne,  Philip  Congreve, 
"  with  many  others."  He  declares  that  the  true 
spirit  of  pastoral  is  greatly  misunderstood,  and 
that  clownish  or  low  phrases,  obsolete  expres- 
sions, labored  turns  of  wit,  and  amorous  ex- 


THE    ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  167 

travagances  do  not  make  good  bucolics.  He 
then  shows  that  in  the  works  of  acknowledged 
masters  of  shepherd  song,  Theocritus,  Virgil, 
Tasso,  and  Spenser,  there  are  frequent  diver- 
gences from  the  manner  of  strict  bucolics,  such, 
for  instance,  as  the  heroic  pieces  among  the 
Sicilian  idylls,  and  he  recalls  the  saying  of  San- 
nazaro  that  the  pastoral  is  really  a  species  of 
epic.  He  calls  the  slow  perfection  of  pastoral 
verse  a  proof  of  its  greatness,  and  accounts  for 
the  inferiority  of  the  poems  by  Moschus  and 
Bion  with  the  long  gap  in  the  tradition  between 
Theocritus  and  Virgil  by  the  suggestion  that 
pastoralism  had  to  wait  till  the  "  slow  advance 
of  genius  should  raise  up  some  equal  to  the  un- 
dertaking." He  adds  that  Servius  allows  only 
seven  of  Virgil's  bucolics  to  be  pure  pastorals, 
and  Heinsius  rejects  for  the  same  reason  all  but 
ten  of  the  idylls.  He  declares  this  view  absurd, 
showing  that  husbandmen,  vine-dressers,  fishers 
and  others  are  proper  subjects  for  pastoral  treat- 
ment, not  only  by  nature  but  by  the  example  of 
Theocritus  and  Virgil  themselves.  He  asks  why 
the  Reapers,  the  Two  Fishers  or  others  not  shep- 
herds should  be  excluded,  continuing  thus: 

"  Why  not  Anglers,  Fowlers  and  other  rural 
employments,  whose  leisure,  solitude,  and  inno- 
cent manners  make  them  strictly  conformable  to 
.  .  .  rule.  The  heavy,  precise  Grammarians  .  .  . 
would  be  hard  put  to  it  by  their  rules  to  prove 
the  purity  of  those  ten  idylliums  which  they  have 
set  apart  as  regular,  or  acquit  themselves  for 
those  they  have  rejected  .  .  .  What  title  has  his 


1 68 


IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 


Second,  the  Inchantment,  to  the  genuine  class — 
the  man  a  town  wrestler."  He  cavils  also  at  the 
second  idyll,  and  at  the  seventh,  eleventh,  and 
twentieth.  After  enlarging  further  on  the  min- 
gling of  characters  in  the  works  of  Theocritus 
and  Virgil  he  concludes: 

"  Both  from  Theocritus'  and  Virgil's  authority 
and  practice,  let  but  the  manners  of  the  speakers 
be  adapted  to  the  simplicity  and  purity  of  the 
golden  age;  let  them  have  but  leisure  for  their 
muses,  and  the  country  for  their  residence,  and 
whether  they  are  Shepherds,  Anglers,  Fowlers 
...  it  is  equally  indifferent ;  Nature  is  a  wide 
field,  and  varied  for  contemplation,  and  the  mul- 
tiform pleasing  objects  and  observations  that 
present  themselves  from  floods,  hills,  woods,  val- 
lies,  and  plains,  and  their  numerous  orders  of 
inhabitants,  may  furnish  the  pastoral  poet  with 
a  choice  of  familiar  beautiful  ideas."  He  con- 
cludes this  part  of  the  essay  by  citing  the  names 
of  many  famous  writers  who  have  been  good 
anglers  and  have  at  the  same  time  written  of 
their  art  in  a  way  to  establish  precedent.  Among 
the  English  writers  cited  are  Dean  Donne,  Sir 
Francis  Bacon,  Sir  Henry  Wotton  and  Izaak 
Walton  himself,  whose  love  of  angling  he  extols 
at  some  length.  What  he  here  says  about  the 
"  Compleat  Angler  "  is  a  naive  confession  of  the 
inspiration  that  led  him  to  try  his  hand  at  writing 
piscatory  poems : 

"I  found  by  the  Dialogues  of  his  Anglers,  how 
properly  they  would  suit  with  the  innocent, 
humble  nature  of  Eclogue  ..."  a  discovery 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  169 

which,  as  has  been  shown,  John  Whitney  had 
made  some  years  earlier. 

The  second  part  of  the  essay  is  not  so  logical 
as  the  first,  and  the  author  is  guilty  of  the  same 
fallacy  of  which  he  accuses  other  critics.  He 
thinks  that  the  fishers  most  suitable  for  pastoral 
treatment  are  gentlemen  amateurs,  strolling  along 
English  streams.  Great  men  have  been  shep- 
herds, so  that  a  poet  is  "  not  deviating  from  their 
characters  to  make  them  civil  and  ingenius,  and 
for  fear  of  drawing  them  courtiers,  paint  them 
as  savages :  the  golden  mean  is  to  be  observed. 
If  ...  I  have  made  my  Swains  ...  a  little  too 
well  bred  for  natives  of  the  country,  it  was  be- 
cause I  judged  my  subject  not  straightened,  nor 
the  speakers  limited  to  all  the  slavish  forms  the 
pastoral  critics  have  required."  At  this  point  he 
forgets  that  the  two  old  fishermen  in  the  idyll  by 
Theocritus,  whom  he  has  cited  as  precedent  for 
the  painting  of  analogous  characters  in  English 
poetry,  are  scarcely  gentlemen  amateurs,  and  he 
declares  that  anglers  are  legitimate  subjects  but 
"  Fishers  .  .  .  following  their  laborious  employ- 
ments on  the  main,  are  not  to  be  properly  reduced 
to  this  taste,  nor  are  these  the  most  eligible  sub- 
jects. If  they  can  be  lawfully  used,  it  must  be 
but  sparingly,  and  with  some  art  and  manage- 
ment, or  they  will  appear  with  no  advantage.  I 
have  used  them  but  once  in  these  eclogues  .  .  . 
my  professed  view  in  this  undertaking  was  to 
see  how  a  mixture  of  characters,  and  a  designed 
variety  of  subjects  would  appear  .  .  .  I  have  but 
one  eclogue  with  Fowlers."  He  declares  also 


170  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

that  it  would  be  better  if  Sannazaro  had  never 
written  his  "  sea-eclogues "-  -"  the  exercise  of 
fishing  appears  so  contemptible  in  him,  that  any 
that  writes  on  a  subject  that  seems  to  be  of  a 
similar  aspect,  must  suffer  disadvantage.  His 
oysters  and  crayfish  are  served  plentifully  over 
without  any  change,  and  you  may  break  your 
teeth  before  you  get  at  his  entertainment.  His 
water-swains  differ  no  ways  from  our  most  sim- 
ple ones  on  land,  only  that  he  turns  them  to  sea 
in  an  old  tattered  boat,  and  so  leaves  them  to 
wail  their  loves  and  seek  their  fortunes."  This 
criticism  of  Sannazaro  is  much  more  severe  than 
that  already  cited  from  the  Guardian,  but  it  is 
clear  that  Browne  calls  the  exercise  of  fishing  in 
the  humanistic  poems  "  contemptible  "  chiefly  be- 
cause his  own  ideal  is  that  of  Walton.  He  evi- 
dently examined  the  thin  piscatory  disguise  in 
the  allegorical  poems  of  Sannazaro,  found  little 
technical  information  about  actual  fishing,  and 
decided  to  produce  a  work  which  should  preserve 
the  classical  conventions  and  types  of  song  as 
far  as  possible,  and  at  the  same  time  adapt  the 
piscatory  form  to  the  purpose  of  rendering  the 
"  Compleat  Angler "  in  verse.  One  entire  ec- 
logue, to  be  sure,  is  imitated  from  Milton,  and 
despite  his  savage  strictures,  one  from  Sanna- 
zaro, but  most  are  based  on  angling  scenes  in 
Walton,  with  some  touches  from  Bacon,  Donne, 
and  others.  This  Browne  tells  the  reader  in 
copious  footnotes,  aimed  to  show  that  everything 
in  his  poems,  especially  the  actual  angling  lore, 
is  sanctioned  by  high  authority.  Here  and  there 


THE    ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  I71 

the  influence  of  Spenser  and  that  of  Fletcher  are 
very  obvious,  and  the  prose  arguments  prefixed 
to  the  poems,  quaintly  worded  and  somewhat 
specific,  are  evidently  imitated  from  those  in  the 
"  Shepherds  Calender." 

It  should  be  added  that  Browne's  attitude 
towards  the  use  of  a  variety  of  characters  in 
pastoral  verse  was  not  typical  of  the  critics  of 
the  earlier  part  of  the  century,  Pope  in  particu- 
lar, finding  fault  with  Theocritus  because  of  the 
very  fact  that  he  introduces  fishers  and  har- 
vesters. In  spite  of  his  theory,  too,  Browne 
after  all,  wishes  only  to  establish  the  amateur 
angler  on  a  par  with  other  characters  in  pastoral. 
Fortunately  his  study  of  Walton  and  his  expe- 
rience as  an  angler  led  him  to  abandon  the 
pathetic  fallacy,  which  in  earlier  pieces  made 
fishes  pop  their  heads  out  of  the  water  to  hear 
the  songs  of  fishermen.  That  sort  of  thing  does 
not  appear  in  the  eighteenth  century  piscatory 
eclogues,  the  poets  being  convinced  that  it  was 
not  consistent  with  any  realistic  picture  of  anglers 
engaged  at  their  sport. 

Having  attempted  to  show  that  the  best  prece- 
dent exists  for  the  presentation  of  a  judicious 
variety  of  characters  in  pastoral  poetry,  he  closes 
the  essay  by  ridiculing  the  idea  that  shepherds 
must  be  in  love,  citing  Dryden's  criticism  of 
English  eclogues  for  this  affectation  — "  This 
Phyllissing  comes  from  Italy."  Finally  he  gives 
a  general  eulogy  of  angling  and  cites  a  number 
of  famous  fishermen,  among  them  Phineas 
Fletcher,  from  whose  poems  he  quotes,  Dr. 


l72  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Nowell,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  Cicero,  Antony  and 
Cleopatra,  with  others  ancient  or  modern,  as  they 
happened  to  occur  to  him.  It  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  remark  that  Browne  fails  to  show  that 
gentlemen  anglers  are  the  most  eligible  charac- 
ters for  pastoral  treatment,  but  nevertheless  his 
essay  and  Rooke's  are  far  more  logical  and  show 
far  keener  insight  into  the  real  nature  of  coun- 
try song  than  does  the  critic  in  the  Guardian, 
and  than  the  great  Johnson  does  a  little  later  in 
the  Rambler,  as  will  be  shown. 

Browne's  poems  are  an  interesting  attempt,  at 
least,  to  carry  into  effect  the  theories  expressed 
in  his  preface.  Three  pieces  are  contests,  one 
of  them  beginning  in  rude  banter  borrowed  and 
adapted  from  Virgil's  third  bucolic.  Two  youth- 
ful anglers  sing  before  the  herdsman  Mico,  who 
watches  them  fishing,  alternate  songs  giving  an 
accurate  account  of  the  inconveniences  to  fisher- 
men resulting  from  long  draughts  and  land  floods, 
the  signs  and  changes  of  the  weather,  seasons 
best  for  their  recreation,  and  the  methods  of 
summer  and  winter  angling.  All  this  knowledge 
is  of  course,  Waltonian,  yet  it  has  the  sanction 
of  Augustan  criticism  in  Pope's  dictum  that  the 
characters  in  pastoral  should  be  made  to  know 
enough  astronomy  to  assist  them  in  the  pursuit 
of  their  daily  routine  in  life.  Browne's  singers 
are  rewarded  with  wreaths  of  flowers  and  myrtle, 
invited  to  Mico's  cottage  because  rain  threatens, 
and  are  promised  "  two  rods  of  smoothest  cane 
with  lines  of  silk  and  purest  hair,"  if  they  will 
teach  him  to  fish  and  sing  as  well  as  they  do. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  1 73 

Another  match  (ec.  6)  between  Myrtol  and 
Thelgon,  with  a  third  fisher  as  umpire,  is  made 
the  vehicle  for  detailed  information  about  "the 
nature  and  breed  of  fish,  their  haunts  and  feed- 
ing," with  the  usual  reward,  and  commendation. 
The  last  contest  (ec.  7),  "The  Strife,"  is  imi- 
tated in  part  from  Fletcher's  "  The  Strife,"  and 
in  part  from  other  sources.  Just  as  in  Fletcher's 
poem  the  match  is  held  before  a  fisher  umpire 
between  an  angler  and  a  shepherd,  each  singing 
the  praises  of  his  own  way  of  life,  while  the 
rallying,  which  leads  to  the  challenge,  is  that  of 
Virgil's  third  piece.  Browne  explains  that  the 
shepherd  Clorin's  song,  in  compliment  to  Pan, 
for  the  first  time  embodies  in  verse  the  story  of 
Pytis,  a  nymph  beloved  by  the  rural  gods,  but 
changed  to  a  pine  to  escape  the  rage  of  Boreas, 
whom  she  slighted.  Hence  Pan  crowns  himself 
with  pine,  and  hence  the  tree  sighs  when  the 
north  wind  blows.  The  fisher  Comus  relates  the 
metamorphosis  of  beautiful  Sabrina,  drowned  in 
Severn,  by  which  the  contestants  now  sit.  Browne 
recalls  that  the  ultimate  source  of  the  legend  is 
in  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  but  the  use  of  the 
names  Sabrina  and  Comus  together  certainly 
suggests  the  influence  of  Milton's  Comus.  The 
refrains,  on  the  other  hand,  are  English  variants 
on  those  in  Virgil  (8)  : 

"  Ye  graces  aid,  ye  muses  tune  my  tongue 
Thou  Pan  be  present  and  assist  my  song" — 

and 

"  Ye  vales,  ye  rocks,  ye  caves  your  echoes  bring, 
And  thou,  Sabrina,  listen  while  I  sing." 


174  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Here  we  have  rather  a  complicated  develop- 
ment of  the  genre,  including  motives  from 
Fletcher,  Virgil,  and  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth. 
Moreover,  the  fisher's  song  describes  no  fewer 
than  thirty-seven  rivers,  all  taken  from  Walton, 
as  copious  notes  explicitly  state,  and  lastly  we 
find  imitation  of  Milton.  First  suggested,  as  we 
have  seen,  by  the  names  of  Comus  and  Sabrina, 
this  last  mentioned  influence  is  made  more  ob- 
vious by  a  story  of  how  a  river-god  seized  and 
wed  the  nymph  Sabra.  He  called  the  floods  to 
the  marriage,  and  a  procession  came  that  is 
almost  certainly  imitated  from  one  in  Lycidas. 
A  short  quotation  may  serve  to  make  this  clear: 

"  First  aged  Isca  came  with  flattering  pace, 
And  Pedred  sprung  of  Ivel's  kingly  race; 
A  dropping  wreath  of  Water-Thyme  he  wore 
And  smiling  Munnow  came,  with  youthful  Dore." 

Let  us  consider  next  Browne's  use  of  the  love- 
lay,  for  although  he  censures  this  in  his  essay,  it 
forms  an  undertone  in  the  poems  which  is  plainly 
reminiscent  of  Spenser.  It  is  first  introduced 
(ec.  2)  amid  the  gloomy  surroundings  incident 
to  night  fishing  for  trout,  and  is  thus  expressed 
in  imagery  taken  directly  from  Walton.  Laco 
is  the  enthusiastic  fisherman,  and  Renock  (the 
poet  himself)  is  suffering  from  slighted  love,  as 
he  manages  to  say  gently,  between  songs  on  other 
matters,  just  as  occurs  in  the  fourth  idyll  by 
Theocritus.  A  long  footnote  on  catching  trout 
by  night  contrasts  sharply  with  the  sentimentality 
of  Renock's  lament  at  the  cruelty  of  his  mistress. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  1 75 

A  few  words  from  the  poem  will  show  one 
curious  effect  of  combining  angling  phraseology 
with  the  conventional  complaint: 

"  Happy  ye  eels,  who  ne'er  love's  torment  know 
And  carp,  blest  kind,  exempt  from  am'rous  woe." 

That  the  introduction  of  this  motive  was  actu- 
ally suggested  by  the  Calender  is  stated  by 
Browne  in  the  argument  to  another  piece, 
"  Renock's  Despair,"  which,  curiously  enough,  is 
also  called  "An  Imitation  of  Milton's  Lycidas" 
(ec.  5).  "  This  eclogue,"  he  says,  "  is  of  private 
concern,  and  contains  an  amorous  soliloquy  of  a 
slighted  swain,  the  same  who  is  introduced  with 
a  complaint  of  his  unsuccessful  passion  in  the 
second  eclogue  (as  Spenser  more  than  once  in- 
troduces his  unhappy  Colin  with  a  well-known 
personal  meaning).  The  Poet  here,  in  respect 
to  the  ancient  birthplace  of  !his  family  (whose 
name  in  the  female  line  he  has  made  his  lover 
personate),  has  singled  out  upon  this  occasion  a 
particular  place  of  action." 

The  conception  of  this  pastoral,  Spenser's 
Colin  metamorphosed  into  an  angler,  singing  a 
complaint  to  "  Lovely  Stella  coy,"  busied  (as  the 
notes  assert)  in  the  most  scientific  and  Waltonian 
style  of  fishing,  and  at  the  same  time  endeavor- 
ing to  rival  the  poetical  effects  of  a  poem  like 
Lycidas,  is  certainly  a  bold  one.  Browne  is  able 
to  turn  out  couplets  with  a  reasonable  degree  of 
fluency,  but  in  attempting  to  parallel  the  haunt- 
ing music  of  Lycidas  in  piscatory  phraseology, 
expressive  of  wrongs  like  Colin's,  his  efforts  be- 


176  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

come  almost  absurd.  On  the  banks  of  the  Soar 
he  wails  of  "  My  luckless  fate  which  never  shall 
amend."  Stella  is: 

"  Than  Wolf  or  Pike  more  fell 
With  lives  of  foes  their  brutal  rage  they  tame, 
But  thou,  than  savage  kind  more  cruel  grown, 
Prey'st  on  a  heart  which  love  had  made  thy  own." 

Adapted  from  "the  slighted  shepherd's  trade" 
of  Milton,  is  a  statement  that  it  is  not  "  rude  " 
to  make  "  shapely  rods  of  caney  reeds,"  or  "  weave 
in  silken  folds  the  mimic  fly."  Such  imitation 
sounds  strangely  beside  more  notes  on  various 
fish  from  Walton,  Pliny  and  Martial.  The  con- 
clusion is  quite  in  the  manner  of  Sannazaro: 

"  Ye  fisher-swains  and  river  maids  adieu, 
And  all  ye  finny  droves,  a  long  farewell.  .  .  ." 

Renock  is  going  to  leap  from  a  lofty  cliff',  or 
hang  himself,  and  his  ghost  will  wail  in  lonely 
groves. 

The  love  theme  appears  in  one  other  of  the 
poems  (ec. 9), "The  Complaints, or  The  Friends." 
"  This  eclogue,"  says  Browne,  "  is  a  kind  of 
familiar  conference  between  the  poet  and  his 
friend.  The  style  is  designedly  more  negligent 
and  unlabored  than  the  rest,  filled  up  with  little, 
unconnected  pieces  of  private  history  (in  a  man- 
ner Virgil  conducts  a  pastoral  of  the  like  nature) 
wherein  honourable  and  grateful  mention  is  made 
of  some  names,  distinguished  by  their  friend- 
ships. The  Whole  has  an  appearance  suited  to 
the  condition  of  mind  (produced  by  a  series  of 
disappointments  and  dejections)  under  which  it 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  1 77 

was  written."  The  Virgilian  model  is  the  first 
bucolic,  in  which  Tityrus  (Virgil  himself)  talks 
with  a  friend  about  his  gratitude  to  Maecenas, 
who  has  restored  to  him  his  farm,  from  which 
he  had  been  ousted.  In  the  English  imitation 
Renock  (the  poet)  laying  down  his  catch  of  fish, 
rests  in  the  shade  with  Milo,  who  has  been  gather- 
ing fruit.  Renock  sings  his  sorrow  at  the  death 
of  a  patron,  Molesworth  ("author  of  Gate's  let- 
ters"), and  Milo  answers  with  best  wishes  for 
Renock's  happiness,  giving  a  Waltonian  turn  to 
the  conventional  pharseology  in  these  words: 
"nor  greedy  poacher  e'er  thy  Fry  destroy."  This 
first  division  of  the  poem,  then,  is  a  frank  imita- 
tion of  Virgil.  After  a  time,  however,  Renock 
is  led  to  speak  mournfully  about  "  Proud  Stella ! 
Angel  with  a  tyrant's  heart !  "  Though  she  has 
been  "  torn  from  my  arms — vainly  doating  I  will 
still  love,"  and  this  leads  to  Milo's  begging  him 
to  "  repeat  the  song  that  won  a  prize  from 
Moeris."  Renock  accordingly  utters  a  sad  plaint, 
descriptive  of  winter  and  its  ill  effects  on  fish, 
but  Colin's  dismal  strain  (in  the  wintry  Decem- 
ber eclogue  of  Spenser's  Calender)  makes  itself 
heard  in  spite  of  unusually  copious  annotation 
from  the  "  Compleat  Angler."  Sannazaro's  lament 
(ec.  5)  furnishes  Browne  with  a  suitable  refrain: 

"  From  seas  haste,  Proteus,  with  thy  wat'ry  wain 
And  thaw  the  floods,  and  save  thy  dying  train." 

One  of  the  frankest  adaptations  of  matter 
from  Walton  is  "  Linus  and  Aquadune."  The 
fisher  Aquadune  calls  on  the  swain  Linus  to  help 

13 


178  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

him  recover  a  trout  with  which  an  otter  is  trying 
to  make  off.  The  episode  is  taken  from  one  in 
the  "  Angler,"  but  Aquadune's  moralizing  ac- 
count of  the  calamities  of  fish,  the  poet  states 
that  he  based  mainly  on  Donne's  twenty-ninth 
sonnet,  which  is  as  follows : 

"Is  any  kind  subject  to  rape  like  fish? 
Ill  unto  man  they  neither  do  nor  wish. 
Fishers  they  kill  not,  nor  with  noise  awake — 
They  do  not  hurt,  nor  strive  to  make  a  prey 
Of  beasts,  nor  their  young  Sons  to  bear  away. 
Fowls  they  pursue  not,  nor  do  undertake 
To  spoil  the  nests  industrious  birds  do  make. 
Yet  them  all  these  unkind  kinds  feed  upon, 
To  kill  them  is  an  occupation 
And  Laws  make  Lents  and  Fasts  for  their  de- 
struction." 

A  single  piece  introduce  fowlers.  In  the  argu- 
ment Browne  says : 

"This  eclogue,  it  will  be  easily  observed,  con- 
sists of  different  characters  from  the  rest,  and 
was  designedly  introduced,  consistent  with  the 
plan,  as  a  trial  how  a  subject  of  this  new  and 
unattempted  nature  might  be  intermixed  with  a 
pastoral  kind."  The  poem  is  another  "pharma- 
ceutria,"  with  a  love  lament,  given  as  in  Sanna- 
zaro,  charm  first  and  complaint  second,  a  re- 
versal of  the  order  of  these  parts  that  the  human- 
ist was  the  first  to  try.  A  shepherdess,  Melite, 
strives  to  win  back  a  fowler  by  incantations  and 
charms,  in  which  all  the  terms  and  ingredients 
for  sacrifice  are  borrowed  from  "  fowling " 
phraseology.  The  refrain  is  imitated  from  the 
one  in  Theocritus : 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  1 79 

"  Inconstant  moon,  fair  wand'rer,  change  his  mind 
Or  make  me  scorn,  or  make  my  tyrant  kind." 

Thrysil's  complaint  to  Phylla  is  as  close  an  imita- 
tion of  the  conventional  form  as  is  the  charm, 
and  contains  the  refrain: 

"  My  voice,  my  reed,  shall  in  their  turns  complain ; 
Here  mix,  my  moving  pipe,  thy  sweetly  mournful 
strain." 

Even  the  fowling  lore,  as  the  notes  make  clear, 
is  taken  from  bits  in  the  "  Angler." 

In  addition  to  the  Sannazarian  touches  already 
noted  in  the  poems,  mention  should  be  made  of 
the  fourth  eclogue,  the  only  one  portraying  pro- 
fessional fishermen  of  the  deep  sea,  and  it  is 
manifestly  imitated  from  Sannazaro's  third  pis- 
catory. As  the  poet  summarizes  the  content  of 
the  piece: 

"A  company  of  fishers,  forced  by  bad  weather, 
take  harbour  up  a  shady  creek  where  they  divert 
and  refresh  themselves.  An  aged  swain  (at  their 
request)  entertains  them  with  a  song  in  praise  of 
their  humble,  happy  profession,  in  which  by  a 
designed  variety,  he  passes  to  the  different  wonder- 
ful properties  of  some  rivers,  and  of  several  curious 
remarkable  sea-fish,  and  by  occasion  suitable  to  his 
subject  introduces  the  Episodes  of  Arion  and  of 
Glaucus — but  is  interrupted  by  the  return  of  a  calm, 
which  invites  them  back  to  their  employments." 

The  entire  poem  is  much  like  the  Sannazarian 
source,  only  that  the  contest  in  that  piece  is 
replaced  by  the  solo  of  the  old  fisher.  The  fish 
lists  of  Sannazaro  are  enthusiastically  expanded, 


l8o  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

however,  in  a  manner  more  like  that  of  Walton 
and  of  Walton's  sources,  all  of  which  is  acknowl- 
edged by  Browne  in  the  footnotes.  Thus  he  cites 
Walton's  account  of  the  "  hot  sargus,"  and  of 
the  "  chaste  mullet " — taken  from  Du  Bartas, 
and  fromAelian's  "Treatise  of  living  creatures." 
The  stories  of  Glaucus  and  of  Arion,  which  the 
old  fisher  sings,  Browne  renders  from  the  ac- 
count in  Ovid,  and  the  final  account  of  extraor- 
dinary rivers  from  Boyle's  "  History  of  Firmness 
and  Fluidity,"  from  Virgil,  and  from  Gordon's 
Geography,  from  Aristotle,  and  from  "A  Jesuit's 
Voyage  to  Siam."  All  this  frank  admission  of 
indebtedness  is  very  unusual  and  convenient,  but 
it,  too,  is  only  a  characteristic  suggested  by  the 
example  of  the  "  Angler,"  in  which  the  author  is 
careful  to  indicate  the  sources  of  his  informa- 
tion, whenever  it  is  not  obtained  by  actual  obser- 
vation alone. 

Browne's  eclogues  have  thus  a  quasi-scientific 
tone  which  is  rather  out  of  keeping  with  the 
classical  forms  of  pastoral  verse,  but  in  them 
appear  shepherds,  herdsmen,  deep  sea  fishers, 
fowlers,  and  anglers,  the  variety  promised  in  the 
introductory  prose  essay.  Expert  anglers,  pur- 
suing their  sport  along  placid  streams  are  his 
favorite  dramatis  personae,  however,  and  his 
contribution  to  literature  may  be  justly  called  a 
blending  of  the  Sannazarian  piscatory  conven- 
tions with  the  material  of  a  treatise  on  fishing. 
There  is  a  strongly  marked  didactic  purpose  in 
this  combination  of  motives,  and  the  poems  are 
in  the  nature  of  miniature  essays  on  angling 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  l8l 

adapted  to  the  inherited  technique  of  the  pas- 
toral idyll.  The  couplets  in  which  most  of  the 
pieces  are  written  are  very  correct,  and  contain 
many  passages  of  some  prettiness  and  charm,  in 
a  purely  conventional  way.  The  work  was  well 
liked,  was  reprinted  in  1739,  1758,  1773  (in  one 
volume  with  Fletcher's  piscatories)  and  has  a 
place  today  beside  the  "  Compleat  Angler "  in 
libraries  of  angling  literature. 

Apparently  Dr.  Johnson  thought  Browne  might 
have  been  better  employed,  because  he  urged  him 
to  re-edit  Walton's  book,  no  edition  of  which  had 
appeared  since  1676.  This  task  Browne  under- 
took with  enthusiasm,  loving  the  work  not  only 
as  a  treatise,  but  also  as  a  piece  of  good  litera- 
ture. As  he  says  in  his  preface : 

"Mr.  Izaak  Walton's  Complete  Angler  .  .  .  has 
been  always  had  in  the  greatest  reputation,  by  such 
as  are  acquainted  with  books,  and  have  any  discern- 
ing in  works  of  merit  and  nature.  Not  only  the 
lovers  of  this  art,  but  all  others,  who  have  no  in- 
clinations in  the  least  to  the  diversion  of  angling 
that  it  treats  of  have  joined  in  giving  it  their  mutual 
suffrage  and  commendation." 

In  spite  of  this  encomium,  Browne  thought  it 
necessary  to  polish  Walton's  style,  to  omit  parts 
here  and  there,  and  to  smoothe  any  irregularities 
that  he  found  in  his  verse,  all  with  the  purpose 
of  adapting  the  book  to  suit  the  artificial  stand- 
ards of  the  day. 

The  edition  appeared  in  1750,  and  that  same 
year  Johnson  published  in  his  "  Rambler  "  "  The 
Reason  why  Pastorals  delight"  (no.  36,  Satur- 


1 82  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

day,  July  21, 1750),  in  which  he  kindly  laid  down 
some  rules  for  pastoralism,  and  showed  at  some 
length  the  reasons  why  Sannazaro's  plan  ought 
not  to  be  followed.  The  criticism  of  the  fisher 
idylls  begins  with  a  confident  explanation  of  the 
motive  that  led  Sannazaro  to  write  as  he  did : 

"  The  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  some  new 
source  of  pleasure  induced  Sannazaro  to  remove 
the  scene  from  the  fields  to  the  sea." 

He  then  cites  the  censure  in  the  Guardian  which 
declares  the  sea  "an  object  of  terror"  unsuited 
to  pastoral  presentation,  and  remarks  that  the  poet 
has  a  right  to  select  his  images,  and  can  as  easily 
describe  a  calm  sea  as  the  bucolic  writer  can  pic- 
ture a  calm  day  on  shore.  His  objections  to 
Sannazaro's  eclogues  are  that  the  sea  presents 
much  less  variety  to  the  poet  than  does  the  land, 
so  that  descriptive  writers  must  soon  exhaust  the 
possibilities  of  marine  imagery.  He  says,  too, 
that  the  greater  part  of  mankind  must  always 
live  in  utter  ignorance  of  maritime  pleasures,  and 
for  this  reason  a  sea  poem  will  always  remain  for 
an  inlander  as  unintelligible  as  a  chart.  These 
things,  he  believes,  Sannazaro  did  not  perceive 
because  he  wrote  in  Latin,  and  for  the  learned 
few — had  his  piscatories  been  written  in  the  vul- 
gar tongue,  people  would  not  have  taken  the 
trouble  to  read  and  understand  them.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  add  that  the  Theocritean 
idyll  is  not  in  the  least  like  a  chart  to  the  land- 
lubber, and  that  the  Italian  piscatories  had  been 
popular  for  a  century  before  Johnson  wrote. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  183 

His  view,  nevertheless,  seems  to  have  been  gen- 
erally accepted,  and  imitation  of  Sannazaro  in 
England  accordingly  ceased.  Browne's  adapta- 
tion of  a  Sannazarian  poem,  at  best  but  an  effort 
to  show  how  that  sort  of  thing  might  have  been 
done — a  kind  of  gentle  correction,  as  it  were,  of 
Sannazaro's  "contemptible"  professionalism,  is 
really  the  last  of  the  strictly  classic  type  to  keep 
the  piscatory  form. 

Eight  years  after  the  publication  of  Johnson's 
essay  in  the  Rambler  appeared  William  Thom- 
son's "  Hymn  to  May,"  which  the  poet  states  is 
an  imitation  of  Spenser  and  of  Phineas  Fletcher. 
Part  of  the  introduction  is,  in  fact,  a  piscatory 
idyll  filled  with  the  new  feeling  for  nature,  so 
little  understood  by  the  writers  of  Pope's  genera- 
tion. The  speaker,  addressing  lanthe  says: 

"  Let  us  our  steps  direct  where  father  Thame 
In  silver  windings  draws  his  humid  train, 
And  pours,  where-e'er  he  rolls  his  naval  stream, 
Pomp  on  the  city,  plenty  o'er  the  plain : 
Or  by  the  banks  of  Isis  shall  we  stray, 
(Ah,  why  so  long  from  Isis'  banks  away!) 
Where    thousand    damsels    dance,    and    thousand 
shepherds  play? 

Amid  the  pleasaunce  of  Arcadian  scenes, 

Love  steals  his  silent  arrows  on  my  breast; 

Nor  falls  of  water,  nor  enamel'd  greens, 

Can  soothe  my  anguish,  or  invite  to  rest. 

You,  dear  lanthe,  you  alone  impart 

Balm  to  my  wounds,  and  cordial  to  my  smart: 

The  apple  of  my  eye!  the  life-blood  of  my  heart! 

With  line  of  silk,  with  hook  of  barbed  steel 


184  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Beneath  this  oaken  umbrage  let  us  lye, 
And  from  the  water's  crystal  bosom  steal 
Upon  the  grassy  bank  the  finny  prey: 
The  perch,  with  purple  speckled  manifold; 
And  carp,  all  burnish'd  with  drops  of  scaly  gold. 
Or  shall  the  meads  invite,  with  Iris-hues 
And  Nature's  pencil  gay  diversify'd, 
(For  now  the  Sun  hath  lick'd  away  the  dews), 
Fair  flushing,  and  bedeck'd  like  virgin-bride ! 
Thither,  for  they  invite  us,  we'll  repair, 
Collect  and  weave  (whate'er  is  sweet  and  fair) 
A  posy  for  thy  breast,  a  garland  for  thy  hair." 

The  lyric  feeling  in  this  piece,  like  that  in  Dray- 
ton's  sixth  nymphal,  differentiates  it  to  some 
degree  from  most  Augustan  eclogues,  in  which 
(so  far  as  structure  is  concerned)  the  important 
thing  is  the  imitation  of  a  set  model  from  the 
classics. 

Almost  the  last  development  that  took  place 
in  the  English  piscatory  eclogue  is  exemplified  in 
"  The  Anglers — Eight  Dialogues  in  Verse,"  pub- 
lished in  1758  by  Dr.  Thomas  Scott,  a  dissenting 
minister  of  Ipswich,  and  an  ardent  admirer  of 
Walton,  whose  Angler  he  extols  in  his  poems. 
The  purpose  of  the  pieces,  like  that  of  Whitney 
and  of  Browne,  is  to  emulate  the  glories  of  the 
famous  treatise.  Browne  succeeds  in  preserving 
most  of  the  traditional  themes  for  the  eclogue — 
the  contest,  the  complaint,  etc.,  sung  by  anglers 
who  manage,  somehow,  to  give  expression  to  a 
great  deal  of  Waltonian  lore.  Scott  rejects  all 
the  traditional  motives,  introduces  only  anglers 
as  characters,  and  preserves  the  amoeboean  form 
only  that  these  characters  may  tell  all  they  know 


THE    ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  185 

about  fishing,  in  the  style  most  approved  by 
English  sportsmen.  The  kind  of  arguments  in 
favor  of  angling  which  Walton  makes  incidental 
to  a  debate  between  an  angler,  a  hunter  and  a 
falconer,  Scott  puts  into  the  mouths  of  Candidus 
and  Serius,  who  take  the  matter  up  with  enthu- 
siasm in  the  first  eclogue.  Then  follow  "  Some 
General  Rules  of  the  Sport,"  in  a  conversation 
between  Tyro  and  Piscator,  his  experienced  tutor. 
Next  Musaeus  talks  with  Simplicius  about  "  An- 
gling for  trout " ;  Garrulous  and  Lepidus  discuss 
"  Angling  for  Perch  " ;  Lucius  and  Verus  tell  all 
they  can  about  capturing  carp ;  lapis  and  Mysta 
expound  the  mysteries  of  "  mixed  angling " ; 
Axylus,  Musaeus  and  Chiron  converse  on  "  Trowl- 
ing  for  Pike,"  and  finally  Icenus  and  Caurus  take 
up  the  matter  of  "  Fishing  for  Pike  with  Lay- 
hooks."  Like  Whitney's  dialogue  these  are  di- 
dactic treatises  in  miniature,  phrased  in  couplets 
and  interspersed  with  occasional  lyrics,  as  in 
Walton,  aimed  to  illustrate  points  that  arise 
during  the  course  of  conversation.  The  charac- 
ters are  anglers,  far  too  careful  to  frighten  the 
fish  by  singing  while  they  whip  the  stream,  and 
about  as  far  removed  in  every  way  from  the 
swains  in  Sannazaro  as  it  is  possible  to  be.  An 
examination  of  the  eclogues,  however,  shows  that 
the  author  was  an  educated  man,  conversant  with 
the  traditional  forms  for  the  pastoral,  and  that 
he  frankly  preferred  to  render  the  "  Compleat 
Angler"  in  eclogue  form  rather  than  to  attempt 
a  ridiculous  compromise  between  the  outworn 


1 86  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

classic  conventions58  and  the  treatise,  which 
Browne  had  attempted. 

Scott's  dialogues  were  reprinted  (1773)  in  "A 
Collection  of  Scarce,  Curious  and  Valuable 
Pieces,  both  in  Verse  and  Prose,  chiefly  selected 
from  the  fugitive  Productions  of  The  Most  Emi- 
nent Wits  of  the  Present  Age,"  published  at 
Edinburgh  by  W.  Ruddiman  in  1773.  The  whole 
set  of  eclogues  was  later  boldly  pirated  by  Thomas 
Pike  Lathy  and  embodied  in  his  poem  in  ten 
cantos  called  "  The  Angler,"  which  was  published 
in  1819,  1820  and  1822. 

So  the  fisher  eclogue  was  found  wanting  even 
for  quasi-sporting  verse,  and  gradually  disap- 
peared. It  never  attained  in  England  the  vogue 
which  it  had  enjoyed  in  Italy,  partly  because  the 
classic  types  of  song  were  not  found  flexible 
enough  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  needs  of  the 
only  branch  of  angling  literature  which  was 
destined  to  much  popularity,  and  partly  because 
the  angler  poetry  in  Walton's  treatise,  which  was 
allowed  to  set  the  style  for  such  matters,  was 
almost  exclusively  lyric.  The  few  ramifications 
of  the  genre  in  England,  though  not  important 
by  themselves,  form,  when  grouped  with  analo- 
gous developments  on  the  continent,  a  consider- 
able body  of  poetry,  small  if  compared  with  pas- 
toral of  the  woods  and  fields,  but  fairly  continu- 
ous, and  illustrating  so  long  as  it  lasts,  the  per- 

68  A  single  imitation  of  the  Sannazarian  love  serenade 
motive,  an  "  ecloga  piscatoria "  by  Metastasio,  composed 
to  be  set  to  music,  was  printed  in  the  appendix  to  Sir 
John  Hawkin's  1784  edition  of  Walton's  Angler.  The 
piece  is  not  found  in  Metastasio's  works. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  187 

sistence  of  characteristics  derived  from  the  verse 
of  Theocritus,  Virgil  and  Sannazaro.  The  con- 
ventions of  country  song  had  become  the  thinnest 
of  shams  long  before  they  entered  English  litera- 
ture, yet  almost  to  the  end  of  its  existence  the 
fisher  pastoral  included  occasional  glimpses  at 
the  realistic  side  of  life  inspired  by  the  tradition 
that  began  with  the  idyll  of  the  two  old  men,  and 
the  dream  of  the  golden  fish. 

When  the  exotic  pastoral  died  out  in  England 
it  left  in  its  place  a  branch  of  literature  destined 
to  attain  great  bulk,  if  little  else.  This  was  the 
angling  georgic,  the  joint  result  of  the  hearty 
British  love  for  the  gentle  sport,  and  of  admira- 
tion for  Virgil.  The  germs  of  such  works  were 
undoubtedly  in  such  compositions  as  the  didactic 
dialogues  by  Whitney  and  Browne,  but  it  re- 
mained for  John  Gay  to  demonstrate  in  his 
"  Rural  Sports  "  the  feasibility  of  employing  the 
mechanism  of  Virgil's  Georgics  to  combine  de- 
scription of  piscatory  and  other  country  sport, 
with  idyllic  pictures  of  rural  life. 

Some  of  his  lines  addressed  to  Pope  declare 
that: 

"  Where  fields  and  shades,  and  the  refreshing  clime, 
Inspire  the  sylvan  song,  and  prompt  my  rhyme, 
My  muse  shall  rove,  through  flowery  meads  and 

plains, 

And  deck  with  Rural  Sports  her  native  strains; 
And  the  same  road  ambitiously  pursue, 
Frequented  by  the  Mantuan  swain  and  you."59 

68 "Rural  Sports,"  a  Georgic  inscribed  to  Mr.  Pope,  1713. 
Quotations  are  from  canto  one. 


l88  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

By  a  "  murmuring  brook "  he  will  read 

"  the  Mantuan's  Georgic  strains, 
And  learn  the  labours  of  Italian  swains." 

If  we  place  side  by  side  Gay's  pictures  of  rural 
scenes  in  England  with  Dryden's  translation  of 
Virgil's  Georgics,  we  see  at  a  glance  how  very 
skillfully  the  poet  managed  to  imitate  at  once  the 
manner  of  the  great  Roman  and  that  of  his  friend 
Pope.  Space  forbids  quotation  from  any  of  the 
numerous  descriptions  save  that  of  angling,  to 
which  more  than  half  of  the  first  canto  is  exclu- 
sively devoted.  The  illustrations  are  drawn  from 
actual  observation,  but  are  agreeably  free  from 
the  heavy,  didactic  note  distinguishing  the  poetry 
of  Browne.  Spring,  of  course,  is  the  season  for 
the  sport: 

"  When  genial  Spring  a  living  warmth  bestows, 
And  o'er  the  year  her  verdant  mantle  throws, 
No  swelling  inundation  hides  the  grounds, 
But  crystal  currents  glide  within  their  bounds; 
The  finny  brood  their  wonted  haunts  forsake, 
Float  in  the  sun,  and  skim  along  the  lake; 
With    frequent    leap    they    range    the    shallow 

streams, 
Their  silver  coats  reflect  the  dazzling  beams." 

At  this  season  the  angler  prepares  for  the  field: 

"  Now  let  the  fisherman  his  toils  prepare, 
And  arm  himself  with  every  watery  snare; 
His  hooks,  his  lines  peruse  with  careful  eye, 
Increase  his  tackle,  and  his  rod  retie." 

All  being  prepared  he  betakes  himself  to  a  brook, 
and: 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  189 

"  Far  up  the  stream  the  twisted  hair  he  throws, 
Which  down  the  murmuring  current  gently  flows ; 
When,  if  or  chance  or  hunger's  powerful  sway 
Directs  the  roving  trout  this  fatal  way, 
He  greedily  sucks  in  the  twining  bait, 
And  tugs  and  nibbles  the  fallacious  meat !  " 

A  struggle  royal  ensues : 

"  How  thy  rod  bends ;  behold,  the  prize  is  thine ! 
Cast  on  the  bank,  he  dies  with  gasping  pains, 
And  trickling  blood  his  silver  mail  distains." 

After  this  picture  Gay  gives  exact  and  Walton- 
esque  instructions  about  the  preparation  of  the 
various  sorts  of  live  bait  and  the  circumstances 
under  which  they  should  be  used.  Turning  then 
to  angling  in  shallow  rivers  in  sunny  weather,  he 
enumerates  the  steps  to  be  followed  in  the  prep- 
aration of  artificial  flies: 

"  To  frame  the  little  animal,  provide 
All  the  gay  hues  that  wait  on  female  pride. 
Let  nature  guide  thee :  sometimes  golden  wire 
The  shining  bellies  of  the  fly  require ; 
The  peacock's  plumes  thy  tackle  must  not  fail, 
Nor  the  dear  purchase  of  the  sable's  tail. 
Each  gaudy  bird  some  slender  tribute  brings, 
And  lends  the  growing  insect  proper  wings." 

He  gives  elaborate  directions  of  this  sort,  with 
more  about  the  choice  of  flies  for  the  season  of 
the  year  and  to  suit  the  feeding  habits  of  fish  in 
particular  streams,  and  then  after  giving  direc- 
tions for  trout  fishing,  describes  the  playing  of 
an  enormous  salmon.  The  canto  closes  with 
warning  to  kill  the  otters  that  infest  the  streams, 


19°  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

and  with  strictures  on  unsportsmanlike  devices, 
such  as  "  the  thievish  nightly  net,"  the  "  barbed 
spear,"  and  with  eulogy  of  fly  fishing,  as  the 
finest  of  sports. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  second  canto  Gay 
remarks : 

"  Now,  sporting  Muse,  draw  in  the  flowing  reins, 
Leave  the  clear  streams  awhile  for  sunny  plains, 
Should  you  the  various  arms  and  toils  rehearse, 
And  all  the  fishermen  adorn  thy  verse; 
Should  you  the  wide  encircling  net  display, 
And  in  its  spacious  arch  inclose  the  sea; 
Then  haul  the  plunging  load  upon  the  land, 
And  with  the  soal  and  turbot  hide  the  sand, 
It  would  extend  the  growing  theme  too  long, 
And  tire  the  reader  with  the  watery  song." 

This  passage  gives  about  the  same  space  to  sea 
fishing  as  is  found  devoted  to  it  by  Virgil  (georgic 
4),  but  Gay  was  interested  primarily  in  amateur 
fishing,  so  the  professional  pursuit  of  the  craft 
is  left  alone,  and  he  goes  on  to  describe  the  vari- 
ous pleasures  of  hunting,  with  many  charming 
sketches  of  out  door  life  with  dog  and  gun,  or 
with  horse  and  hounds. 

It  will  readily  be  observed  that  the  first  canto 
of  this  poem  is  in  some  ways  merely  an  elaborate 
fisher  idyll  fitted  to  the  English  taste  for  angling, 
and  in  various  adaptations  of  that  form  the  genre 
spread  and  multiplied  for  more  than  a  century.60 

James  Thomson  told  Collins  that  he  took  the 
first  hint  for  "  The  Seasons  "  from  the  four  titles 
of  Pope's  pastorals,  and  it  is  quite  possible,  too, 

00  See  "  Biblioteca  Piscatoria." 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  191 

that  Gay's  angling  scene  may  have  suggested  a 
very  similar  passage  in  the  familiar  "  Spring " 
(1728).  Whether  this  be  so  or  not  Thomson's 
poem  embodies  one  of  the  liveliest  pictures  of  the 
sort  in  English  literature.  First  the  poet  gives 
the  proper  time  for  the  sport: 

"  Now,  when  the  first  foul  torrent  of  the  brooks, 
Swelled  with  the  vernal  rains,  is  ebbed  away — 
And,  whitening,  down  their  mossy-tinctured 

stream 

Descends  the  billowy  foam — now  is  the  time, 
While  yet  the  dark-brown  water  aids  the  guile, 
To  tempt  the  trout." 

Like  Gay  he  scorns  the  worm,  advising : 

"  The  well-dissembled  fly, 
The  rod  fine-tapering  with  elastic  spring, 
Snatched  from  the  hoary  steed  the  floating  line, 
And  all  thy  slender  watery  stores,  prepare." 

He  describes  the  best  weather  and  the  likeliest 
spot  for  a  rise: 

"Just  in  the  dubious  point,  where  with  the  pool 
Is  mixed  the  trembling  stream,  or  where  it  boils 
Around  the  stone,  or  from  the  hollowed  bank 
Reverted  plays  in  undulating  flow, 
There  throw,  nice-judging,  the  delusive  fly; 
And,  as  you  lead  it  round  in  artful  curve, 
With  eye  attentive  mark  the  springing  game. 
Straight  as  above  the  surface  of  the  flood 
They  wanton  rise,  or  urged  by  hunger  leap, 
Then  fix,  with  gentle  twitch,  the  barbed  hook; 
Some  lightly  tossing  to  the  grassy  bank, 
And  to  the  shelving  shore  slow-dragging  some, 
With  various  hand  proportioned  to  their  force. 


192  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Like  a  good  sportsman  he  urges  the  angler  to 
throw  back  into  the  stream  the  smaller  fish 
caught,  adding: 

"  But  should  you  lure 

From  his  dark  haunts,  beneath  the  tangled  roots 

Of  pendant  trees,  the  monarch  of  the  brook, 

Behoves  you  then  to  ply  your  finest  art. 

Long  time  he,  following  cautious,  scans  the  fly ; 

And  oft  attempts  to  seize  it,  but  as  oft 

The  dimpled  water  speaks  his  jealous  fear." 

Lucky  is  the  angler  if  the  giant  bites: 

"  At  last,  while  haply  o'er  the  shaded  sun 
Passes  a  cloud,  he  desperate  takes  the  death, 
With  sullen  plunge.    At  once  he  darts  along, 
Deep-struck,  and  runs  out  all  the  lengthened  line ; 
Then  seeks  the  farthest  ooze,  the  sheltering  weed, 
The  caverned  bank,  his  old  secure  abode  ;Ma 
And  flies  aloft  and  flounces  round  the  pool, 
Indignant  of  the  guile.     With  yielding  hand, 
That  feels  him  still,  yet  to  his  furious  course 
Gives  way,  you,  now  retiring,  following  now 
Across  the  stream,  exhaust  his  idle  rage; 
Till,  floating  broad  upon  his  breathless  side, 
And  to  his  fate  abandoned,  to  the  shore 
You  gaily  drag  your  unresisting  prize." 

With  the  growth  of  this  branch  of  the  species 
the  present  book  does  not  pretend  to  deal,  since  it 
is  hardly  to  be  classed  as  pastoral  verse,  unless 
under  a  very  elastic  definition.  In  one  very  dif- 
ferent piece,  however,  we  catch  once  more  the 

*°*  In  the  Latin  poem  already  cited  by  Vanieri  occurs  a 
passage  almost  identical  with  this  sentence  and  with  the 
following  one. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  193 

spirit  of  the  gray  myths  of  ocean  divinities  in 
far  off  Greece,  and  of  the  story  of  Glaucus,  the 
fisher  of  the  Golden  Age,  as  told  by  Keats  in 
Endymion. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  Theocritus  to  the  year 
1818,  yet  the  life  of  Keats'  fisher61  is  not  far 
different  from  that  described  in  the  Sicilian 
idylls.  Glaucus  says  of  himself: 

"  I  touched  no  lute,  I  sang  not,  trod  no  measures  ; 
I  was  a  lonely  youth  on  desert  shores. 
My  sports  were  lonely,  'mid  continuous  roars 
And  craggy  isles  and  sea-mews'  plaintive  cry, 
Plaining  discrepant  between  sea  and  sky. 
Dolphins  were  still  my  playmates;  shapes  unseen 
Would  let  me  feel  their  scales  of  gold  and  green," 

His  was  a  silent  existence : 

"...  the  crown 

Of  all  my  life  was  utmost  quietude; 
More  did  I  love  to  lie  in  cavern  rude, 
Keeping  in  wait  whole  days  for  Neptune's  voice, 
And  if  it  came  at  last,  hark,  and  rejoice !  " 

Finally  he  was  a  near  neighbor  to  the  shepherds 
and  a  sharer  in  their  idyllic  life : 

"  There  blushed  no  summer  eve  but  I  would  steer 
My  skiff  along  green  shelving  coasts,  to  hear 
The  shepherd's  pipe  come  clear  from  aerie  steep, 
Mingled  with  ceaseless  bleatings  of  his  sheep: 
And  never  was  a  day  of  summer  shine, 
But  I  beheld  its  birth  upon  the  brine: 
For  I  would  watch  all  night  to  see  unfold 
Heaven's  gates,   and  Aethon  snort  his  morning 
gold 

91  See  Endymion,  Book  3,  337  fol. 
14 


194  IDYLLS   OF    FISHERMEN 

Wide  o'er  the  swelling  streams :  and  constantly 
At  brim  of  day-tide,  on  some  grassy  lea, 
My  nets  would  be  spread  out,  and  I  at  rest. 
The  poor  folk  of  the  sea-country  I  blest 
With  daily  boon  of  fish  most  delicate: 
They  knew  not  whence  this  bounty,  and  elate 
Would  strew  sweet  flowers  on  a  sterile  beach." 

Critics  who  write  of  the  pastoral  often  half 
apologize  for  the  fact  that  in  England  the  species 
did  not  take  a  realistic  turn,  save  in  such  occa- 
sional poems  as  those  of  Gay's  "  Shepherd's 
Week."  What  the  poets  of  the  Romantic  school 
thought  of  the  adaptability  of  the  exotic  genre 
to  purposes  of  realism  is  adequately  shown  by 
their  neglect  of  the  classic  pastoral,  a  subject 
far  beyond  the  scope  of  this  book. 

It  has  been  shown  that  piscatory  eclogues  are 
only  a  special  field  of  the  classic  pastoral  intro- 
duced from  Italy,  a  mere  variant  played  on  the 
ancient  reed  pipe.  In  Theocritus  the  pictures  of 
fishers  are  as  vivid  as  those  of  shepherds,  and  in 
the  later  decadence  of  bucolic  poetry  we  find 
the  faults  of  the  piscatory  akin  to  those  of  the 
more  regular  form  of  country  song.  Naturally, 
as  we  have  seen,  there  is  no  more  real  fish  lore 
in  the  poems  of  Phineas  Fletcher  than  there  is  of 
sheep-craft  in  Spenser's  Calender. 

Poems  on  angling,  as  must  have  been  realized 
at  an  early  date,  should  strive  at  exactness  of 
observation,  a  thing  absolutely  foreign  to 
Fletcher's  conception  of  the  possibilities  of  the 
genre  which  he  attempted  to  exploit  in  England. 
Thus  the  "  Secrets  of  Angling,"  first  published  by 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  IQ5 

John  Dennys  in  1613,  and  composed  in  stanzas 
almost  exactly  like  those  of  Fletcher,  owes  its 
undoubted  success  as  a  piece  of  literature  to  the 
nice  and  discriminating  descriptions  and  observa- 
tions with  which  the  author  elucidates  the  gentle 
art,  but  it  is  no  more  a  pastoral  than  is  a  treatise 
on  raising  sheep.  It  should  be  classed  with  the 
angling  treatises,  itself  the  first  one  in  English 
verse,  but  really  descended  lineally  from  the  same 
stock  as  that  in  Latin  and  Anglo-Saxon  some- 
times attributed  to  Aelf ric,  and  from  "  A  Treatise 
of  Fysshynge  with  an  Angle,"  written  by  Juliana 
Berners  in  1496. 

John  Dennys  is  the  first  of  a  long  line  of  poets 
who  devoted  themselves  to  poetry  on  angling,  and 
his  realistic  muse  is  she  whom  Moses  Browne, 
as  has  been  shown,  attempted  to  hamper  with  the 
fetters  of  the  classic  conventions,  an  attempt 
which  was  destined  to  fail  of  result. 

In  Sir  Walter  Scott's  "  Antiquary,"  (1616),  we 
find  elements  which  open  an  interesting  field  for 
speculation.  Here  we  read  prose  idylls  drawn 
from  the  lives  of  actual  Scotch  fishers,  of  the 
same  sort,  doubtless,  as  those  whom  Ben  Jonson 
had  in  mind  when  he  planned  to  write  a  Scotch 
piscatory  drama.  All  is  pictured  from  life:  the 
smoky  huts,  the  boats  drawn  up  on  the  beach 
and  reeking  with  pitch,  the  noisy  fish-wives,  the 
chatter  of  girls,  the  simple  lives  of  simple  folk, 
the  old  fisher-sibyll  with  her  extraordinary  lore — 
itself  a  match  for  that  of  the  "wise"  shepherd 
of  pastoral  tradition,  the  scraps  of  fisher  song. 
A  poet  might  have  done  much  with  such  sub- 


196  IDYLLS  OF  FISHERMEN 

jects — but  the  day  of  the  eclogue  was  past,  and 
did  not  return. 

It  remains  to  mention  a  single  work  which  has 
no  immediate  connection  with  the  English  fisher 
poem,  but  which  may  in  a  way  be  considered  the 
last  piscatory  of  the  Sannazarian  line,  Lamar- 
tine's  "  Graziella,  a  story  of  Italian  Love."  The 
scenes  described  in  this  wonderful  idyll  recall  on 
every  page  the  shores  so  loved  by  Sannazaro,  and 
the  life  led  there  by  Lamartine  among  the  fishers 
is  as  primitive  and  picturesque  as  that  shown  in 
the  poems  of  Theocritus.  "  There  are  no  differ- 
ences," says  the  author,  "between  the  shepherd 
or  laborer  of  our  mountains  and  the  fisherman  of 
the  Gulf  of  Naples  than  those  of  location, 
language  and  calling.  The  furrow  or  the  wave 
inspires  with  the  same  thoughts  the  man  who 
tills  the  ground  and  the  man  who  toils  upon  the 
sea.  Nature  speaks  the  same  language  to  all 
those  who  receive  nourishment  from  her  bosom, 
whether  it  be  on  the  mountain  or  on  the 
ocean."61* 

Lamartine  asks  an  old  fisher  to  let  him  share 
his  arduous  life,  which  he  commends.  The  man 
replies,  "  You  are  right,"  and  then,  "  It  is  a  trade 
that  makes  the  heart  contented  and  the  soul  con- 
fident in  the  protection  of  the  saints.  The  fisher- 
man is  under  the  immediate  charge  of  heaven. 
Man  knows  not  whence  comes  the  wind  or  the 
wave.  The  file  and  the  plane  are  in  the  hand  of 
the  workman,  riches  and  favor  are  in  the  hand 
of  the  king,  but  the  boat  is  in  the  hand  of  God." 

Ma  Translation  by  J.  B.  Runnion,  Chicago,  1876. 


THE   ENGLISH    FISHER   IDYLLS  197 

The  hut  of  the  fisher  is  on  a  lofty  rock  above 
the  sea — "A  great  fig  tree  and  some  tortuous 
vine  stalks  were  bending  over  the  angle  of  the 
house,  confusing  their  leaves  and  fruits  at  the 
entrance  of  the  walk,  festooned  and  creeping 
over  the  wall  that  supported  the  arcades  above. 
Their  branches  half  formed  bars  to  the  two  low 
windows  that  looked  out  upon  this  little  garden 
walk ;  and  if  there  had  been  no  window,  the  low, 
square  and  solid  house  might  have  been  mistaken 
for  one  of  the  light  gray  rocks,  peculiar  to  the 
coast,  or  for  one  of  those  blocks  of  petrified  lava 
(entwined  in  the  branches  of  the  chestnut,  the 
ivy  and  the  vine),  out  of  which  the  grape  cul- 
tivators of  Castellamare  and  Sorrento  hew  caves, 
close  them  with  a  door,  and  there  preserve  the 
wine  by  the  side  of  the  stock  that  first  bore  it." 

The  inside  of  the  cabin  was  "  as  bare  ...  as  the 
outside.  .  .  .  The  walls  were  entirely  without 
plaster  and  only  covered  with  a  thin  coat  of 
whitewash.  The  lizards,  aroused  by  the  light, 
shone  in  the  crevices  of  the  rocks  and  crept  under 
the  fern  leaves  that  served  as  the  children's  bed. 
Nests  of  swallows,  whose  little  black  heads 
peeped  out,  and  whose  restless  eyes  twinkled  in 
surprise,  hung  down  from  the  beams,  still  covered 
with  bark,  which  formed  the  roof." 

There  Lamartine  lived  the  life  of  a  fisherman, 
a  hard  life,  but  a  contented  one — changing  little 
from  age  to  age;  there  he  heard  the  weird  old 
fisher  songs,  that  have  been  sung  since  no  man 
can  tell  when,  and  there  he  met  the  fisher-girl 
with  whom  he  fell  in  love.  The  pathetic  verses 


198  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

in  which  he  mourned  the  death  of  his  sweetheart 
may  be  considered  the  last  notable  elegy  among 
idylls  of  fishermen,  and  like  so  many  of  the 
earlier  ones  the  poetry  finds  its  key  note  in  the 
grayness  and  sadness  of  the  sea. 


APPENDIX 

The  influence  of  Sannazaro's  work,  particularly 
of  the  Arcadia,  on  French  and  Spanish  literature 
has  been  treated  among  others  by  Francesco 
Torraca,  in  his  Gl'Imitatori  Stranieri  di  Jacopo 
Sannazaro  (Rome,  1882).  This  is  an  interesting 
work,  but  not  very  accurate,  as  may  be  seen  from 
such  indications  as  the  fact  that  the  author  states 
that  Sir  Philip  Sidney  imitated  Sannazaro's  Ar- 
cadia, and  then  admits  never  having  read  the 
English  work. 

A  good  account  of  the  Italian  piscatory  is 
Mario  Mangani's  Origine  e  svolgimento  dell' 
egloga  pescatoria  italiana  (Nicastro,  Bevilacqua, 
1902). 

M.  Antoine  Campaux,  in  a  pamphlet  entitled  De 
Ecloga  Piscatoria  qualem  a  veteribus  adumbra- 
tam  absolvere  sibi  proposuit  Sannazarius  (Paris, 
1859),  covers  much  the  same  ground  as  the  in- 
troductory portions  of  the  present  work.  M. 
Campaux  did  not  attempt,  however,  to  trace  the 
relationship  between  the  piscatory  and  the  bu- 
colic, but  simply  to  list  the  early  examples  of 
pictures  of  fishermen  which  Sannazaro  may  have 
known,  and  to  sketch  the  main  lines  of  his  influ- 
ence in  Italy  (especially  in  Neo-Latin)  and  in 
France. 

The  present  work  aims  to  treat  the  idyll  of 
fishers  as  part  of  the  broader  field  of  pastoral  in 
Europe,  of  which  the  English  is  but  a  corner. 
199 


2OO  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

Note.  The  translations  in  this  volume  from 
Theocritus  and  Moschus  are  by  Mr.  A.  Lang. 

GERMANY 

The  influence  of  Sannazaro  in  Germany  was 
apparently  slight.  The  best  examples  are  Hulric 
deHutten's  Latin  hexameter  poem  De  Venetorum 
Piscatura,  1488,  and  the  vernacular  Fischerge- 
dichte  und  Erzahlungen  by  F.  Bronner,  Zurich, 
1787. 

In  German  dramatic  literature  are  Theodor 
Korner's  Fischermadchen  (Berlin,  Dramatische 
Beytrage),  1821,  and  Goethe's  "Fischerin" 
which  was  composed  at  Weimar,  and  was  in- 
tended for  presentation  on  an  open  air  stage. 

The  fisher  scenes  in  Schiller's  Wilhelm  Tell  are 
too  familiar  to  call  for  comment.  It  will  be 
recalled  that  the  play  opens  to  the  accompaniment 
of  the  "  Kuhreihen,"  and  that  there  follow  three 
songs:  one  rendered  by  a  fisher  boy  in  his  skiff, 
one  by  a  herdsman  on  the  mountain  side,  and  one 
by  a  hunter  on  the  rocks.  Here  we  find  once 
more  placed  side  by  side  the  figures  so  familiar 
in  humanistic  eclogues. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY   OF   PISCATORY 
LITERATURE 

AELFRIC.  For  the  angling  treatise  attributed  to 
Aelfric  see  W.  W.  Skeat,  "An  Angler's 
Notebook."  London,  1880. 

AESOP.     Fables.    Edwin  Pearson.    London,  1871. 

ALCIPHRON.  Epistles  in  which  are  described 
The  Domestic  Manners,  The  Courtesans, 
and  Parasites  of  Greece.  Now  first  trans- 
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AMALTHEUS,  J.  (Giovanni  Battista).  See  J. 
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ARCHIPPUS.    Fragments.    See  Athenaeus. 

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learned ;  literally  translated  by  C.  D.  Yonge, 
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London,  1854. 

AUSONIUS,  DECIMUS  MAGNUS.  Opera  Omnia,  ex 
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BAGNO,  FERRANTE.  Maritime  eclogues.  Casal 
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202  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

BALDI,  BERNARDINO.  Egloghe  Miste.  Venice, 
1590.  The  same,  "  Ordinate  e  annotate," 
Firenze,  1859. 

BEAUMONT  AND  FLETCHER.  The  Maid's  Trag- 
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BELLEAU,  REMY.  LaBergerie.  Paris,  1565  (part 
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BERNARDINO,  S.  Sonetti  e  Canzoni,  con  L'egloghe 
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BERNARDES,  DIEGO.  Olyma,  1596.  SeeCamoens, 
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Paderborn,  1880.  Notes. 

Bibliographia  Piscatoria.  Thomas  Westwood  and 
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BINET,  CLAUDE.  Quelque  Autres  diverses  Poesies 
de  Claude  Binet.  Paris,  1573. 

BION.  See  Theocritus,  Bion  and  Moschtis  ren- 
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BIONDI,  LUIGI.  Egloghe  di  Virgilio,  di  Calpurnio 
del  Nemesiano,  di  Petrarcha  e  del  Sanna- 
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BRISSET,  ROLAND.  Translation  of  Ongaro's  Al- 
ceo.  Paris,  1596.  Another  by  Claude  le 
Villain.  Paris.  1602. 


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BRIZEUS,  A.  La  Plainte  du  Pecheur.  See  Les 
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BROWNE,  MOSES.  Angling  Sports :  in  nine  pisca- 
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BROWNE,  WILLIAM.  Inner  Temple  Masque.  Lon- 
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CALDERON  DE  LA  BARCA.  El  Golfo  de  Las 
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CALLIMACHUS,  CYRENAEUS.  Hymns,  an  Elegy 
on  the  bath  of  Pallas  and  Epigrams.  Hesiod. 
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CALMO,  ANDREA.  Rime  Pescatorie,  Venice,  1 550. 
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CAMPAUX,  ANTOINE.  De  Ecloga  Piscatoria  qua- 
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CAPACCIO,  GIULIO  CESARE.  Mergellina.  Egloghe 
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CARRARA,  ENRICO.  Poesia  Pastorale.  See  Storia 
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DIAPER,  JOHN.  Nereides  or  Sea-Eclogues.  Lon- 
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EMERSON,  O.  F.  Some  of  Chaucer's  Lines  on 
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EPICHARMUS.  Fragments.  Athenaeus.  See  also 
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ERASMUS,  DESIDERIUS.  Venatio.  See  his  Collo- 
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FLETCHER,   JOHN.     The   Faithful   Shepherdess. 

London,  1609-10. 
FLETCHER,  GILES  THE  ELDER. 
FLETCHER,  GILES  THE  YOUNGER.     See  Ed.  A. 

B.  Grosart.     London,  1876. 
FLETCHER,  PHINEAS. 


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208  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

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BIBLIOGRAPHY  209 

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PONTANO,  GIOVANNI.    Carmina.     Firenze,  1902. 

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RUFFINO,  BAPTISTA  (GIOVANNI).  Favola  Pes- 
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15 


a  10  IDYLLS   OF   FISHERMEN 

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SAMMARTINO,  MATTED.  Pescatoria  et  Egloghe. 
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SANNAZARO,  GIACOPO.  Opera.  Naples,  1526,  and 
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SCOTT,  SIR  WALTER.  The  Antiquary.  Edin- 
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SHAKESPEARE,  WILLIAM.  Pericles.  London,  1607- 
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SIDNEY,  SIR  PHILIP.    Arcadia.    London,  1590. 

SMITH,  A.  H.  Shakespeare's  Pericles  and  Apol- 
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SPENSER,  EDMUND.  The  Shepheards  Calender. 
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STORCK,  WILHELM.  German  translation  of 
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BIBLIOGRAPHY  211 

THOMSON,  WILLIAM.     Hymn  to  May.     Oxford, 

1758. 

TIRABOSCHI,  G.  Storia  Delia  Litterat.  Ital.  Milan, 
1822-26. 

TORRACA,  FRANCESCO.  Gl'  Imitatori  Stranieri  di 
Jacopo  Sannazaro.  Rome,  1882. 

TWINE,  LAURENCE.  Patterne  of  Paine ful  Ad- 
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VERDIZOTTI,  G.  M.    Eclogae  Piscatoriae.    Rome, 

1566. 

VIRGIL.    Aeneid.    Georgics.    Bucolics. 
VIDA,  M.  HIERONYMUS.     See  RooKE.    Complete 

poetical  works.     London,  1732. 
WALTON,  IZAAK.    The  Compleat  Angler.    Lon- 
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WHITNEY,  JOHN.    The  Genteel  Recreation  with 

A  Dialogue  between  Piscator  and  Corydon. 

London,  1700  and  1823. 
WILKINS,   GEORGE.      Pericles    Prince   of   Tyre. 

London,  1608. 
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et  d'Anthia;  histoire  Ephesienne.    Tr.  J.  B. 

Jourdan.     Paris,  1785. 
ZANCHIUS,  BASILIUS.    See  complimentary  verses 

in  early  eds.  of  Sannazaro. 
ZARRO,  JUAN.     See  Codax. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  THE  CHIEF 
ENGLISH  PISCATORIES 

GILES  FLETCHER.     Latin  Eclogues,  158-. 

EDMUND  SPENSER.  The  Faerie  Queene,  1595. 
(First  three  books,  1579-1589.) 

JOHN  LYLY.    Love's  Metamorphosis,  1588. 

PHINEAS  FLETCHER.    Latin  Eclogues,  ante  1610. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE.  Pericles,  1607.  The 
Tempest,  1610. 

PHINEAS  FLETCHER.  Piscatorie  Eclogs,  com- 
posed 1610-1616,  pub.  1633.  Sicelides,  com- 
posed 1615,  pub.  1631. 

DENNYS,  JOHN.    The  Secrets  of  Angling,  1613. 

LAURENCE  TWINE.  Patterne  of  Paineful  Ad- 
ventures, 1516. 

JOHN  LEECH.    Musae  Priores,  1620. 

MICHAEL  DRAYTON.    The  Muses'  Elyzium,  1630. 

JOHN  DONNE.    The  Bait,  1633. 

JOHN  MILTON.    Paradise  Regained,  1666. 

T.  FORD.     Piscatio,  1692. 

JOHN  WHITNEY.  The  Genteel  Recreation  with 
a  Dialogue  between  Piscator  and  Corydon, 
1700. 

JOHN  DIAPER.    Nereides  or  Sea-Eclogues,  1712. 

JOHN  GAY.    Rural  Sports,  1713. 

J.  ROOKE.  N.  TATE.  Translations  of  Sannazaro, 
1726. 

MOSES  BROWNE.  Angling  Sports  in  nine  Pisca- 
tory Eclogues,  1729. 

WM.  THOMSON.    Hymn  to  May,  1758. 


CHRONOLOGICAL   LIST  313 

DR.  THOMAS  SCOTT.  The  Anglers — Eight  Dia- 
logues in  Verse,  1758. 

LEWIS,  MONK.  The  Castle  Spectre.  London, 
1797. 

SCOTT,  SIR  WALTER.     The  Antiquary,  1816. 

JOHN  KEATS.    Endymion,  1818. 


INDEX 


Achilles  Tatius,  36. 
Addison,  Joseph,  163,  164. 
Aelfric,   195. 
Aelian,    156,   180. 
Aeschylus,  42. 
Aesop,  9. 
Agathias,    33. 
Alcaeus,  8. 

Alciphron,  27-31,    143. 
Alexander  ab  Alexandro,    156, 

157- 

Alvarez,  G.,   156. 
Amaltheus,  J.,   66. 
Anthology,   The  Greek,  34. 
Antiphanis,    13,    14,    15. 
Apollonius  of  Tyre,    134,    135. 
Archippus,   15. 
Arion,  9,  84,  142,  143. 
Ariosto,  64. 
Aristotle,   180. 
Athenaeus,    4,    7,    13,    14,    15, 

26,  42. 
Ausonius,     Decimus     Magnus, 

43.  9°. 

Bacon,    Sir   Francis,    168. 
Bagno,  Ferrante,  66. 
Baldi,  Bernardino,  74. 
Basilius  Zanchius,   51. 
Beaumont   and  Fletcher,   101. 
Bell,    Beaupre,    164. 
Belleau,  Remy,  87-91. 
Bernardino,    S.,    78. 
Bernardes,  Diego,  84,  86,  108. 
Bernardim  Ribeiro,  81. 
Bible,  The,  112,  113,  151,  152. 
Binet,  Claude,  91. 
Bion,   25,    167. 
Biondi,   Luigi,   68. 
Bohn   (Libraries),  36. 
Bonarelli,    C.   G.   de,   92. 
Boscan,  Juan,  81. 
Bottazzo,  G.  I.,  67. 
Boyle,   Robert,   180. 
Brisset,  Roland,  92. 
Brizeus,  A.,  94. 
Bronner,  Xavier,  200. 
Browne,    Moses,    165-181,    184, 

187,  188,  195. 
Browne,    William,     132,     139, 

150,   1 66. 


Bryant,  William  Cullen,  6. 
Buchanan,  George,   165. 
Calderon  de  la  Barca,  84,  86, 

133- 

Callimachus,  26. 
Calmo,  Andrea,  73. 
Camoes,  Louis  de,  82,  83,  84. 

86,   108. 

Campaux,   Antoine,   95,    199. 
Capaccio,   G.   C.,   73. 
Carmosina    Bonifacia,    45,    46, 

51,   52,  88. 

Carrara,   Enrico,   67,   68,   70. 
Casal  Monferrato,  66. 
Cervantes,  M.  de,  81. 
Chalkhill,  Joseph,   151. 
Chaucer,   Geoffrey,   96. 
Cholmeley,   R.  J.,   22. 
Christophe    de    Gamon,    91. 
Cicero,  42,  172. 
Claude  le  Villain,   92. 
Codax,  Martin,  '82. 
Congreve,   Philip,    166. 
Cotta,  Giovanni,  65. 
Daniel,  Samuel,   132. 
Dante,  45,  63. 
Davors,  Joseph,  151. 
Decimus  Laberius,  41. 
Delille,  Jacques,  95. 
Dennys,   John,    195. 
Diaper,  John,   155-165. 
Diphilos,   15,  39. 
Donne,    John,    148,    150,    151, 

1 68,    178. 
Drayton,      Michael,       144-148, 

150,   151,  162,  184. 
Drummond,    William,    102. 
Dryden,    John,    56,    153,    171, 

188. 

Du  Bartas,  S.,   151,   156,   180. 
Du  Bellay,  J.,  87. 
Elton,  C.  A.,  7. 
Emerson,   O.   F.,   112. 
Epicharmus,   n,  12. 
Erasmus,  Desiderius,  64,  95. 
Fawkes,   T.,  8. 

Fletcher,   John,    136,    149,    166. 
Fletcher,   Giles  the    Elder,   96, 

97,    101,   126. 


2X4 


INDEX. 


215 


Fletcher,    Giles    the    Younger, 

no. 
Fletcher,     Phineas,     97,     106, 

107-139,   140,   141,   144,   145, 

150,  151,  152.  162,  166,  171, 

173,  174,  181,  183,  194,  195- 
Fonteny,  Jacques  de,  95. 
Ford,   Simon,   152. 
Franciscus   Champion,   95. 
Frondius,  N.,  95. 
Gambara,   Lorenzo,  67. 
Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  81. 
Gay,  John,  187,  188,   189,  190, 

191,  194. 
Geoffrey    of    Montnouth,     173, 

174. 

Goethe,  J.  W.,  200. 
Goina   (Goynaeus),  67. 
Gordon,  Patrick,   180. 
Gower,  John,   134. 
Greban,  Arnoul,  94. 
Greene,  Robert,   105. 
Greg,   W.   W.,   73,   139,    144- 
Grotius,   Hugo,    140,    142,    143, 

165,  166. 
Guardian,  The,   163,    164,   170, 

182. 

Guarini,  G.  B.,   136. 
Hanford,  J.   H.,   48. 
Hardie,  Alexandre,  93. 
Hedyle  (also  Hedylus),  26,  27. 
Heinsius,   Daniel,    142,   167. 
Heliodorus,   36,    134. 
Herondas,    13,    15. 
Hesiod,   6. 

Homer,  4,  5,  6,  7,  19,  38,  107. 
Horace,  152,  156. 
Hulric   de   Hutten,   200. 
Jacobi  Vanieri,  95,   192. 
Jodelle,  E.,  91. 
Johnson,     Samuel,      172,      181, 

182,    183. 

Jonson,   Ben,    101,    102,    195. 
Juliana,    Dame,   195. 
Keats,  John,   193. 
King,    William,    152. 
Lamartine,   A.    M.,    196-198. 
Lamennais,   F.   R.,  95. 
Lang,  A.,  200. 
Lathy,  Thomas  Pike,   186. 
Leech,  John,  140-144,  162,  163. 
Leonidas  of  Tarentum,  23,  31. 
Lewis,  Monk,   139. 


Lillo,  George,  134. 

Longus,  35. 

Lope  de  Vega,  81. 

Lucan,   42. 

Lucian,  31,    155,   156,   101. 

Lyly.  John,  101,  139. 

Maecius  Quintus,  32. 

Mallory,    Sir  Thomas,   99. 

Mangani,   Mario,    199. 

Mantuan,  67,  97,   115,   122. 

Marchetti,  A.,   78. 

Margaret  of  Navarre,   87. 

Marlowe,      Christopher,       148, 

154- 

Marot,  Clement,  91,   125. 
Marsan,  Jules,  93. 
Martial,    176. 
Martin,    Giovanni,    87. 
Meli,   Giovanni,   87. 
Menander,   15,   16. 
Mendoza,  Inigo  de,   81. 
Menendez  y  Pelayo,  M.,  82. 
Metastasio,   Pietro,   186. 
Michel,  Jean,  94. 
Milton,    John,    48,     112,     114, 

117,  151,  170,  173,  174.   175, 

176. 

Montemor,  Jorge  de,  81. 
Moschus,   25,   26,    167,   200. 
Munday,  Anthony,   100. 
Nashe,  Thomas,   133. 
Nichols,  John,  99,  101,  112. 
Nonnus,   34. 
Nowell,  Dr.  A.,   172. 
Olaus  Magnus,    156. 
Ongaro,    Antonio,    72,    77,    86, 

92,   93- 
Oppian,  32. 

Ovid,   27,   42,    138,    1 80. 
Pancrates  (The  Arcadian),  10. 
Parini,  Giuseppe,  79,  80. 
Paulus  Manutius,  62. 
Paulus  Silentuarius,  33. 
Pausanias,  42. 
Pedro  de  Encinas,  42. 
Peter,  E.  W.,  8. 
Petrarch,  63. 
Philostratus,    25. 
Plato,    13. 

Plautus,    15,  39,   40. 
Pliny,   32,   44,    176. 
Plutarch,    42. 
Pollux,  1 6. 


2l6 


INDEX. 


Pomponius   Bononiens,    41. 

Pontano,  45,  46,  51,  53,  56, 
57,  59- 

Pope,  Alexander,  153,  157, 
171,  172,  183,  187,  188,  190. 

Prefect,  The,  of  Egypt,  32. 

Rambler,  The,   181,   183. 

Rhannusius,    156. 

Rohde,    Erwin,    134. 

Ronsard,  Pierre  de,  91,  92. 

Rooke,  M.,   164,   165,   172. 

Rota,  Berardino,  70,  71,  72, 
79- 

Rowe,   Nicholas,    1 52. 

Ruddiman,  W.  A.,    186. 

Ruffino,  Baptista  (Giovanni), 
78. 

Sabie,  Francis,   105. 

Saint-Amant,   94. 

Sammartino,  Matteo,  73. 

Sannazaro,  Giacopo,  4,  5,  27, 
43,  44,  45-65,  66,  67,  68, 
69,  70,  71,  72,  73,  74,  75, 
77,  78,  79,  80,  81,  82,  83, 
84,  86,  87,  88,  89,  90,  91, 
92,  96,  97,  101,  107,  108, 
109,  in,  114,  128,  129,  135, 
140,  141,  142,  143,  144,  147, 
154,  155,  157,  158,  159,  162, 
163,  164,  165,  166,  167,  170, 
176,  177,  179,  180,  182,  183, 
185,  186,  187,  196,  199. 

Sappho,   8,   28. 

Scaliger,   Julius,    52. 

Schiller,  200. 

Scott,  Dr.  Thomas,  184,  185, 
186. 

Scott,   Sir  Walter,   195. 

Seneca,  40. 

Serapion,  33. 

Servius,   107. 

Shakespeare,  William,  133, 
144. 

Sidnam,  Jonathan,  92. 

Sidney,   Sir  Philip,   133,   199. 

Smyth,  A.  H.,   134. 

Solerti,   Angelo,   78. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  74,  102, 
103,  105,  106,  107,  108,  109, 
in,  114,  115,  116,  117,  118, 
120,  122,  123,  124,  125,  126, 
127,  128,  130,  132,  139,  144, 


152,  153,  159,  166,  167,  171, 
174,  175,  177,  183,  194. 

Sophron,   12,   13. 

Steele,  Richard,  153. 

Strabo,  42. 

Storck,  Wilhelm,  84. 

Swift,  Jonathan,    155. 

Taigeto,  G.  A.,  67. 

Tasso,  Bernardo,  68,  69,  70, 
167. 

Tasso,  Torquato,  72,  76,  77, 
78,  93,  167. 

Tate,  N.,  164. 

Tatler,  The,   153. 

Theocritus,  3,  7,  8,  17,  18,  22, 
23,  24,  25,  26,  27,  28,  29, 
3°,  3i,  38,  39,  40,  43,  47, 
48,  49,  52,  54,  55,  59,  60, 

63,  64,    68,    69,    75,    80,    87, 
89,    91,    92,     101,     114,     137, 
141,   153,   158,   162,   166,    167, 

168,  174,  179,  182,  187,   193, 
194,   200. 

Thomson,   James,    190,    191. 

Thomson,  William,   183. 

Tiraboschi,   G.,  70. 

Torraca,  Francesco,  199. 

Twine,  Laurence,   134. 

Verdizotti,   G.   M.,   67. 

Virgil,  4,  31,  39,  41,  44,  47, 
48,  49,  So,  51,  52,  53,  55, 
56,  57,  58,  59,  61,  62,  63, 

64,  68,    69,    71,    80,    82,    87, 
90-97,     107,     109,    in,     114, 
127,  132,  140,  153,   154,  157, 
161,  163,   164,  166,  167,   168, 
172,  173,  176,   177,  187,  188, 
190. 

Vida,  M.  H.,  66. 

Vulpius,  51,  52. 

Walton,  Izaak,  43,  in,  112, 
150,  151,  153,  154,  168,  170, 
172,  174,  175,  176,  177,  180, 
181,  184,  185,  186,  189. 

Webster   and   Rowley,    139. 

Whitney,  John,   153,   154,    155, 

169,  184,  185,  187. 
Wilkins,  George,    134. 
Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  151,  168. 
Xenophon,  The  Ephesian,   134. 
Zarro,  Juan,  82. 


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